SOURCE: "Shooting Up," in New Republic, November 14, 1994, pp. 26-7.]

In the following review, Kauffmann offers unfavorable evaluation of Pulp Fiction.

By now everybody knows that Quentin Tarantino is the happiest man in the world. Not so many years ago he was a clerk in a California video store, devouring film film film. Then he tried to break into filmmaking himself, first by writing scripts. It took years to get in. But those video days and the buff-dom of his boyhood sustained him, and now he is where he dreamed of being. He is making the films that will stock those video stores. Some younger aspirant will sell Tarantino tapes.

About his grit and passion, no question. About his achievements so far, some doubts. His first film was Reservoir Dogs, which drew particular attention because of its tidy frame and its offhand violence, but which seemed to me shrewdly...