Crime drama is given stylish and original treatment in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction. In his take on the genre there is an easy interplay between the mundane and the brutal. Told with visual panache and unconventional dialogue, three stories of the Los Angeles underworld interweave in a complex structure.

The tales were written separately, with two of them written years before the film was conceived. In the first story, two professional hitmen, Jules and Vincent, kill some young men who have stolen a brief case containing something of great beauty and value from gang boss Marcellus Wallace. The routine job becomes a life-changing incident for Jules when one of the young men shoots repeatedly at Jules and Vincent from across the small room, but every shot misses. Jules takes this "miracle" as a sign from God. The job is further complicated when Vincent creates a...