A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.
At 153 minutes, the movie does occasionally flirt with tedium, but the risk is worth it: The whole is finally greater than the sum of its pulpy parts. What could have been an anything-goes pastiche has surprising rigor and narrative clarity.
– John Hartl,
Seattle Times,
15 May 2013
fresh:
Whether you call it razzmatazz, pizazz or sizzle, Pulp Fiction's got it, enough style for a dozen movies and, truth be told, enough story for five.
– Carrie Rickey,
Philadelphia Inquirer,
15 May 2013
fresh:
The talk is dirty and funny, the violence always waiting just around the corner.
– Anthony Lane,
New Yorker,
15 May 2013
rotten:
The result, especially in the scenes involving Bruce Willis as a nervy boxer, can be long patches of dialogue that must have tickled Tarantino but will not necessarily resonate for anyone else.
– Kenneth Turan,
Los Angeles Times,
15 May 2013
fresh:
This movie gets its charge not from action pyrotechnics but from its electric barrage of language, wisecracks and dialogue, from the mordant '70s classicism of its long-take camera style and its smart, offbeat, strangely sexy cast.