In Danny Turkiewicz’s expansion of his short film of the same name, a group of three friends plot to steal Quentin Tarantino’s personal 35mm print of Pulp Fiction… with a little help (or possible hinderance) from their therapist.
Heist movies are known for having plot holes. The flexing of narrative contrivences that require some suspension of disbelief from audiences to facilitate the required outcome. However in this case, the biggest problem comes from the central concept of the heist. It is completely nonsensical that they plan to steal the print at the actual screening of it. Any projectionist, as this reviewer also happens to be, will know that the reels will either be made up into one large print which would be very awkward to transport, or at least have the first reel or two laced up in the projector ready to go. The obvious time to steal it would have been the night before.
That plus the lack of heavily soundtracked montages of the “assembling the team” and “rehearsing the heist” results in a film that is less Ocean’s Eleven and more 7-11…
Jon Rudnitsky makes for an affable and engaging lead, however the screenplay does not give him (or any of the actors) much to work with in terms of characterisation or witty dialogue.
Even at just 78 minutes of runtime, the feature runs out of steam quite quickly. It is clear that, even with the addition of extraneous subplots involving the characters’ love lives, there is simply not a strong enough story to merit the short’s expansion.
Props however to the background gag where the t-shirts for sale in the cinema containing the fabled 35rmm print become increasingly more highbrow. Going from “I love movies” to “I love movies films” to “I love movies films cinema“.“I steal from every movie ever made. Great artists steal, they don’t do homages” are the words of Tarantino himself. Rather than creating a well-meaning tribute, Turkiewicz should have been as blatant as his hero and stolen flat-out from the work of QT in terms of music, framing, editing, and most importantly… great dialogue.
Stealing Pulp Fiction screens at Glasgow Film Festival on March 7 and March 8.
Rating: 
Director: Danny Turkiewicz
Stars: Jon Rudnitsky, Karan Soni, Cazzie David, Jason Alexander
Runtime: 78 minutes
Country: USA
