Best Movies Inspired by Quentin Tarantino or primarily Pulp Fiction. Similar to or Rips off or Copies Tarantino Style but Not Directed by Tarantino himself. Tarantino-esque. Tarantinoesque.
Best Movies Inspired by Quentin Tarantino or primarily Pulp Fiction. Rips off or Copies Tarantino Style. Not Directed by Tarantino
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1. Check out best Tarantino Like movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls015341630/[/link] .
2. Check out best Felliniesque movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls015216162/[/link] .
3. Check out best Lynchian movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls015263842/[/link] .
4. Check out best Hitchcockian movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls071418428/ [/link].
5. Check out best Lovecraftian movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls020140482/ [/link].
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This isn't about best Pulp Movies. For that Checkout :- [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls011971972/[/link]
This list isn't about movies "THAT INSPIRED" tarantino, so don't expect movies like these on our list
1. City on Fire
2. The killers
3. Lady Snowblood
4. Switchblade Sisters
etc. etc. etc.
Doesn't include Movies Ghost Directed/Written by Tarantino Himself like :-
1. Sin City
2. Natural Born Killers
3. From Dusk Till Dawn
4. True Romance
5. Four Rooms
or Sequels to Tarantino Movies like
1. From Dusk Till Dawn 2 and 3
or Movies Produced/Presented by Tarantino
1. Hostel 1-2
2. Hell Ride
3. Hero
4. Daltry Calhoun
5. My Name is Modesty
6. Curdled
7. Killing Zoe
8. Iron Monkey
9. The Protector
10. The Man with the Iron Fists
********
1. Check out best Tarantino Like movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls015341630/[/link] .
2. Check out best Felliniesque movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls015216162/[/link] .
3. Check out best Lynchian movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls015263842/[/link] .
4. Check out best Hitchcockian movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls071418428/ [/link].
5. Check out best Lovecraftian movies list also [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls020140482/ [/link].
********
This isn't about best Pulp Movies. For that Checkout :- [link]http://www.imdb.com/list/ls011971972/[/link]
This list isn't about movies "THAT INSPIRED" tarantino, so don't expect movies like these on our list
1. City on Fire
2. The killers
3. Lady Snowblood
4. Switchblade Sisters
etc. etc. etc.
Doesn't include Movies Ghost Directed/Written by Tarantino Himself like :-
1. Sin City
2. Natural Born Killers
3. From Dusk Till Dawn
4. True Romance
5. Four Rooms
or Sequels to Tarantino Movies like
1. From Dusk Till Dawn 2 and 3
or Movies Produced/Presented by Tarantino
1. Hostel 1-2
2. Hell Ride
3. Hero
4. Daltry Calhoun
5. My Name is Modesty
6. Curdled
7. Killing Zoe
8. Iron Monkey
9. The Protector
10. The Man with the Iron Fists
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- DirectorSkip WoodsStarsThomas JaneAaron EckhartPaulina PorizkovaA former L.A. drug dealer has moved to Houston to make a new life for himself as a married architect. Everything falls apart when he is suddenly visited by one of his former cohorts who comes carrying heroin.Thursday is like a Homage movie, 100% dedicated to Tarantino's Style. 'Thursday' is a good movie but we recognize too much from other movies in its genre and therefore it lacks originality. If you have seen 'Goodfellas', 'Reservoir Dogs', 'Pulp Fiction' and a bunch of other movies that were inspired by that last one you have seen almost every part from 'Thursday'. There is a scene that involves torturing that has even the same dialogue as in Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'.
Basically I think this film is for me what Reservoir Dogs was for many people - a cult classic - although I prefer to compare it with Pulp Fiction. A great story and good actors. OK the budget might be not as big as in for instance other 1998 movies like Godzilla, The Avengers of Mission to Mars but it sure as hell beats the living crap out of those films (and numerous others).
The story of this film, is about a man named Casey (Thomas Jane), who has settled down with his wife in Houston. Unexpectedly an old friend(played by Aaron Eckhart) of his comes by disrupting his life, revealing his secrets and basically making his day a living hell (and a bloody one too).
The film is very original and quite bloody / sexually tinted. All the characters and actors are good, although I must give very big credits to Thomas Jane and Paulina Porizkova, who were the best actors (and had the best characters) in the film. Also I'd have to thank Skip Woods for being so imaginative and original. Brutal, sexual, offensive??? Maybe, but sure as heck enjoyable and a thrill ride to the end. And the movie also stars Mickey Rourke !!! So if you want to see Rourke in a Tarantino Movie ....... this is the best you'll ever get. - DirectorDoug LimanStarsSarah PolleyJay MohrScott WolfThe aftermath of a drug deal as told from three different points of view.Tarantino-Esque Elements: A group of hip young things, bound together by a shady drug deal played out through a fragmented but interconnected narrative. Every character is given room to breathe, from the leads down to the most incidental scumbag. Yep, sounds like QT to us.
When Roger Ebert reviewed "Go" back in 1999, he used the first paragraph to talk about the lasting legacy of "Pulp Fiction," including the fact that "sooner or later the statute of limitations has to run out" on comparisons between new movies and Tarantino's game-changing masterpiece. And the critical consensus was pretty much in agreement: even though, as Ebert said, "the shadow of Q.T. falls on many scenes," Doug Liman's energetic, candy-colored follow-up to "Swingers" was a deeply entertaining ride in its own right. (It was also, with the country's youth currently under the spell of a dance music renaissance, ahead of its time.)
The biggest debt "Go" pays to "Pulp Fiction" is in its shifty, interlocking narrative that follows a trio of threads, all loosely connected back to a Christmas-themed rave in Los Angeles, and in its cooler-than-thou attitude, with snappy, tough-talking drug dealers, kooky cops and a coolly detached view of violence and its real-world repercussions. (It's also worth noting that Liman was once again latching onto contemporary urban hipster tropes.)
The power of "Go," which unfolds with a nearly hallucinogenic vividness (like "American Graffiti" on ecstasy), is that you aren't actively attributing this debt to Tarantino as the movie is going on. It's hilarious and involving and warm on its own terms. "Go" is one of the rare son-of-"Pulp Fiction" movies where it didn't matter if the influence was obvious; it was that damn good. - DirectorTroy DuffyStarsWillem DafoeSean Patrick FlaneryNorman ReedusTwo Irish Catholic brothers become vigilantes and wipe out Boston's criminal underworld in the name of God.Tarantino-Esque Elements: Tarantino plays with the idea of a criminal following a higher calling with Jules in Pulp Fiction . The difference is, Jules only believes his own hype when he decides to leave the profession. Before then he was just quoting "some cold-blooded *beep*
Somewhere between Tarantino and Ritchie lies Duffy.
"Boondock Saints" is a clever, funny, sufficiently violent movie with an overall high entertainment value. The story revolves around two Irish-American brothers and an excentric gay FBI agent (awesome: William Dafoe). The brothers - devout Catholics - who speak several languages fluently and work in a slaughterhouse find themselves equipped with money and weapons and subsequently start their very own crusade against the evil men of Boston - professional killers, mafia bosses and drug dealers. The agent is at their heels from the outset, but he has to realize that justice is on the side of the brothers...
This basic plot is the foundation for a highly energetic narrative: we get excellent and at times highly comic dialogues (with a high *beep* ratio), running gags, and lots of crazy situations and plot developments that are as absurd as they are funny. The action/shooting scenes are well-choreographed with a fine eye for the detail, but it's the main characters, their dialogues and developments around which the movie is develops rather than the action sequences.
On top of this, we get a fractured time/place structure that's already familiar from movies such as Kubrick's "The Killing" or Tarantino's "Reservoir Dogs", but "Boondock Saints" takes it to new extremes - and thus it's fun to watch. - DirectorGary FlederStarsAndy GarciaChristopher WalkenChristopher LloydFive different criminals face imminent death after botching a job quite badly.Tarantino-Esque Elements: Steve Buscemi as Mr. Shh and Christopher Walken as The Man With The Plan feel as though they've both wandered in from the brain of Tarantino. Quirky criminals, ahoy!
Playing something like a romanticized elegy for gentlemen gangsters, 'Denver' fizzled in theaters, despite boasting Andy Garcia backed by a cast of notables and several Tarantino alumni.
Garcia plays Jimmy The Saint, an ex-con forced into doing a final favor for a slumming Christopher Walken, who proceeds to assemble a team of That Guy Actors. The plan goes sour and Steve Buscemi is dispatched to stalk and kill the men. The echoes of Tarantino are heard far and wide—Buscemi’s contract killer is named Mr. Shhh, nearly every character bears a humorous moniker, the dialogue is akin to a mashup of sixty years of gangster movies, and the tone shifts between graphic violence and humor. You’d be wrong to write off the picture though, since all artifice aside, the filmmaking is hardly pedestrian.
The actors deliver, in particular a gentle Christopher Lloyd and a certifiably demented Treat Williams, while Buscemi cements his presence without so much as a word. It’s stylized, artificial even, but there’s no denying screenwriter Scott Rosenberg (who also penned last year’s “Pain & Gain”) has a sense for the kind of tough guy talk that belongs on the silver screen (and only there). If nothing else, embrace the spoilers and enjoy this scene—the source of fan favorite line: “I am Godzilla, you are Japan!” - DirectorGuy RitchieStarsJason StathamBrad PittStephen GrahamUnscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookmakers, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers and supposedly Jewish jewelers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.Out of Guy Ritchie’s gallery of crime films, “Snatch” happens to be my favorite. But like everyone else, he takes from Tarantino’s style and sets his film in the underground crime world where the search for a diamond brings together a slew of despicable thugs, criminals, low lives, and rubes.
Based mostly in London, the film still manages to squeeze in supporting performances from character actors from around the globe. There’s a great supporting performance from Dennis Farina, the one and only Vinnie Jones, and there are a slew of talented actors in the ensemble including Lennie James, Jason Statham, Jason Flemyng, Alan Ford, Benicio Del Toro, and a pretty paltry supporting performance from Brad Pitt who is memorable as Mickey the Gypsy, a brawling momma’s boy whose accent is so indecipherable not even the characters in the movie can understand him.
Ritchie opts for Tarantinoesque antics and endless monologues and by the end there’s that typical twist that Ritchie delivers that’s very entertaining but indicative of Tarantino’s influence on filmmakers to this day. - DirectorAlejandro G. IñárrituStarsEmilio EchevarríaGael García BernalGoya ToledoAn amateur dog fighter, a supermodel, and a derelict assassin, all separately struggling to find love, find their lives transformed by a devastating car wreck in Mexico City.Tarantino-Esque Elements: What with its tripartite structure and non-linear narrative style, there are very obvious parallels to be drawn with Pulp Fiction . There's even a character named The Goat to fill in for The Wolf.
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu has his foibles—oppressive seriousness, and an at-times comically dour tonal and thematic palette—but the man is still a gifted filmmaker, one of the best of an impressive roster of modern Mexican directors, in fact. That talent was evident from the beginning in his first, and still best, feature to date.
Its similarities to “Pulp Fiction” are pretty clear but mostly surface: three interlocking stories that see characters occasionally cross over; a criminal element; harsh violence. But beyond that, “Amores Perros” (aka “Love’s A Bitch”) is its own beast—a gritty, unflinchingly hard-edged portrayal of loyalty and disloyalty, painful cosmic jokes, fate, and the way love can evolve so fluidly into hatred (and vice versa).
The film’s success led to two more projects between Iñárritu and screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga (the also great “21 Grams” and the just OK-with-moments-of-greatness “Babel” which made up their loosely connected Death Trilogy) before they went their own creative ways.
Arriaga continued his obsession with the hyperlink film when he wrote and directed “The Burning Plain” whereas Iñárritu left it behind to make the more focused “Biutiful,” so perhaps it was the screenwriter who was more influenced by ‘Pulp’. Regardless, “Amores Perros” is a fantastic film that rises well above any Tarantino rip-off labels. - DirectorSteven SoderberghStarsGeorge ClooneyJennifer LopezVing RhamesA career bank robber breaks out of jail, and shares a moment of mutual attraction with a U.S. Marshal he has kidnapped.The Film: Steven Soderbergh's ultra-slick Elmore Leonard adaptation sees George Clooney's escaped con playing with fire with Jennifer Lopez's Federal Marshal.
Tarantino-Esque Elements: Clooney and J'Lo's restaurant chat is a worthy companion piece to Travolta and Thurman's dinner date, while Foley himself would be right at home in any of QT's crime films. And then there's Michael Keaton, playing the same character he played in Jackie Brown . Even Sam Jackson crops up as a character who seems suspiciously like Jules Winnfield.
Mr Purple Or Mr. Pink: Soderbergh's film is a chronically underrated genre flick, and Clooney has rarely been more charming. - DirectorGuy RitchieStarsJason FlemyngDexter FletcherNick MoranEddy persuades his three pals to pool money for a vital poker game against a powerful local mobster, Hatchet Harry. Eddy loses, after which Harry gives him a week to pay back 500,000 pounds.Tarantino-Esque Elements: A cast of colourful criminal characters cracking wise and shooting each other. The template is obvious.
I am a bit dismayed to see some of the marketing of this film comparing it to other things like Quentin Tarantino films or Trainspotting. It really does it a disservice because this film really is its own phenomenon and stands on its own two feet; if anything it is similar to Trainspotting and Tarantino films only because it actually has its own bold style that takes tarantino and boyle and mixes it to create magic of its own.
Critics' endless comparisons of Ritchie's film with the works of Quentin Tarantino and Danny Boyle's 'Trainspotting' stand mostly unwarranted, as these comparisons take away from the inventiveness and originality of 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'. Ritchie's film is a much more involved, complex, layered work than the aforementioned comparisons. While Tarantino's films are very strong on dialogue, screenplay, and editing, they often lack creative camera work and direction. Boyle's 'Trainspotting' does have a resembling "feel" to 'LS&TSB', but aside from its Great Britain origins, there really is no need for comparison. 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' is essential viewing, with homages given to Boyle and Tarantino. - DirectorBryan SingerStarsKevin SpaceyGabriel ByrneChazz PalminteriThe sole survivor of a pier shoot-out tells the story of how a notorious criminal influenced the events that began with five criminals meeting in a seemingly random police lineup.Tarantino-Esque Elements: Chris McQuarrie's punchy script is very Tarantino-esque, what with its focus on male relationships, and the testosterone-driven banter that forms their foundation. There's plenty of non-chronological jumping around as well.
A group of criminals. A detached narrative. An ending that ties it all together. A young director. Style over substance. For its time, “The Usual Suspects” was considered a rather stellar murder mystery that teams a wild cast of characters, all of whom suffer cruel fates at the hands of an unseen crime boss who hides in the shadows for most of the film.
Bryan Singer relies on the detached story segments to throw the audience off to the whole events and provides a narrator who may or may not be entirely reliable or trustworthy to get us through the motions channeling “Rashomon.”
While the film does value style over substance and apes Tarantino in many respects, it’s a considerably solid murder mystery with a surprise ending that’s so well known it’s surprising if you don’t already know it. Come on, you know what the ending is! I knew it two years before I ever actually saw the film. All things considered I can imagine the surprise ending was amazing for its time, and it’s still worth watching if only for the mesmerizing performance from Kevin Spacey. - DirectorBarry SonnenfeldStarsGene HackmanRene RussoDanny DeVitoA mobster travels to Hollywood to collect a debt, and discovers that the movie business is much the same as his current job.Tarantino-Esque Elements: Travolta's career had been handily kick-started by QT, and he plays another memorably cool character here. The dialogue is as hard-boiled and quick-witted as anything Tarantino has come up with, and once again, various story threads come together in explosive fashion.
Not so much ripping off "Pulp Fiction" as betting heavily on its success (it was one of John Travolta's first post-comeback bookings, producers Jersey Films having partly backed ‘Pulp’ and having the inside track), “Get Shorty” also turned out to be one of the very best of the wave of comic crime pictures that came in the years after Tarantino’s game-changer, in part because it directly adapted one of the director’s favorites, Elmore Leonard.
Scripted by Scott Frank and helmed by Barry Sonnenfeld, the film sees Travolta play Chili Palmer, a Miami loan shark who pursues Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), a B-movie producer, only to end up entering the business by pitching a movie based on his life. They set out to land A-lister Martin Weir (Danny DeVito, who also produced), even as Chili woos Weir’s ex-wife (Rene Russo) and fends off both a local drug dealer (Delroy Lindo) and his boss from home (Dennis Farina). It’s convoluted stuff with multiple players, just like all of Leonard’s best work, but Frank’s smart, snappy screenplay manages to make it all comprehensible, and Sonnenfeld’s zippy, career-best direction keeps proceedings light on their feet. Plus the cast are all aces: not just the starry ensemble (with Travolta arguably even better here than in ‘Fiction’), but also the stacked supporting cast that includes James Gandolfini, Jon Gries and, in an unbilled cameo, Bette Midler. Shame about the sequel, though... - DirectorChristopher NolanStarsGuy PearceCarrie-Anne MossJoe PantolianoA man with short-term memory loss attempts to track down his wife's murderer.Christopher Nolan himself said that Quentin Tarantino was an influence on him because he inspired him to read crime novels and stories, which became the basis for his film. In his opinion, the film holds up ten years later because he was inspired by novels and stories rather than films, which is why he feels films like Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) are more "retro."
- DirectorC.M. TalkingtonStarsGil BellowsRenée ZellwegerRory CochraneA small time crook flees to Mexico to evade the authorities, loan sharks, and his murderous ex-partner with only his fiancé and a trusted Colt .45.stars Renee Zellweger in a boneheaded, overcooked "Bonnie & Clyde" story, and seems designed for viewers who found "Natural Born Killers" just too rife with nuance and subtext.
Tarantino-esq action thriller which is worth a look and will not disappoint fans of Quentin's films particularly True Romance. It has (lots of ) violence, rapid gun fire, white trash characters and a large dollop of that comic book humour that has got Quent where he is today. It is easy to see that this film takes its inspiration from the aforementioned film, but it does stand on its own feet as the script and the action is good enough to entertain you throughout. Bellows and Zellwegger are good in the leads and the supporting Rory Cochrane is great fun as their psychotic madman 'friend' out to settle a few old scores. Peter Fonda is a standout as Zellweggers' dad. Highly recommended. - DirectorRob ZombieStarsSid HaigSheri Moon ZombieBill MoseleyThe murderous, backwoods Firefly family take to the road to escape the vengeful Sheriff Wydell, who is not afraid of being as ruthless as his target.Tarantino-Esque Elements: As a trio of nutcases torture and kill their way across America, all the while being pursued by an equally unhinged sheriff, your mind will almost certainly drift to Natural Born Killers . Throw in some extended dialogue riffs and a banging '70s soundtrack and you've got Zombie's most Tarantino-inspired movie to date.
Rob Zombie is one in a long line of genre directors (*cough*Eli Roth*cough*) who are convinced that if they ape the style and tone of Quentin Tarantino, the audience will be none the wiser and they can breeze by with a hit. Like Tarantino’s films there are long drawn out bouts of dialogue and exposition, endless references to pop culture and cult film, a brutally excellent soundtrack, and of course like Tarantino, Zombie’s characters never converse like normal people would in the real world. And lest we forget the co-starring appearance of Sheri Moon who is the Uma Thurman to Zombie’s Tarantino. “The Devil’s Rejects” wisely takes a departure from the mediocre “House of a Thousand Corpses” and is basically just a very violent fugitive flick that channels Peckinpah and Hooper.
With three of our psychotic Firefly siblings on the road, they evade the law, and take the time out to torture and humiliate a family in a motel room for a long period of time because… well, just because. Along the way they’re hunted by a psychotic sheriff, and his two mercenaries for hire, as played memorably by Diamond Dallas Page and Danny Trejo. While Zombie is normally one who apes from Tobe Hooper, and HG Lewis, there’s no denying “The Devil’s Rejects” is Zombie’s Tarantino effort.
It’s a really good film, all things considered and is a bonafide fix for a Tarantino craving the same way a burger is a fix for someone craving steak. - DirectorTony ScottStarsKeira KnightleyMickey RourkeEdgar RamírezA recounting of Domino Harvey's life story. The daughter of actor Laurence Harvey turned away from her career as a Ford model to become a bounty hunter.Tarantino-Esque Elements: Domino herself is the kind of fetishized, badass, *beep* heroine that QT goes a bomb on, while the kinetic energy and frequent ultra-violence is also up his alley. Also, Mickey Rourke seems bound to crop up in one of QT's films at some point!
Based on the exploits of female bounty hunter Domino Harvey, “Domino” is an exploitative guilty pleasure that admits in the opening that most of the movie is fictitious or exaggerated. One of the few films I can sit through from screenwriter Richard Kelly, “Domino” is a really solid action picture starring Keira Knightley as the bored super model who turns bounty hunter, seeking adventure with a crusty Mickey Rourke and the guys from Beverly Hills 90210.
Like much of Tarantino’s films, it features a very spastic energy, sets its spotlight on many thuggish characters, and tends to go off on its own tangent in terms of narrative. And like Tarantino, Domino is completely fetishized for the audience. Overall the film isn’t bad, just don’t go in expecting “Kill Bill.” - DirectorChristopher McQuarrieStarsRyan PhillippeBenicio Del ToroJuliette LewisTwo criminal drifters without sympathy get more than they bargained for after kidnapping and holding for ransom the surrogate mother carrying a baby for a powerful, shady man.As great as ‘Pulp’ is, the majority of the films that tried to emulate it ain’t in the same ballpark, the same league, they ain't even the same *beep* sport. Some get closer though, as in this beautifully crass (for the first half at least) Christopher McQuarrie crime film.
Sure, "The Way of the Gun" is hyper-violent and has a coterie of vulgar, bad people making up its cast of characters. It’s talky and very much “written.” But it’s not so much a knockoff of the QT style as that it shares a similar sensibility for dialogue and genre subversion. It’s even fair to say that McQuarrie was ahead of Tarantino here in terms of heavily aping spaghetti western tropes and style (“Kill Bill” came three years later).
It’s a twisty, ‘70s throwback tale of two low-lifes (Benicio Del Toro and a gravelly-voiced Ryan Phillippe) who kidnap a surrogate mother to a rich couple in hopes of a big score. Things spiral out of control on the way to a brutal gun fight in a dusty old Mexican town.
The characterizations and dialogue really sing, especially coming from the two leads and James Caan as a veteran cleaner of sorts, who puts on an acting clinic in ultimate grizzled old man badassery. There’s a lot of memorable moments, acting choices and sequences: the hilarious, vulgar opening scene sets the tone and establishes these “heroes”; Del Toro slapping a prostitute in the ass before a gun fight; and Phillippe unwittingly leaping into a pile of broken glass (goddammit anyway!), until it all comes way unmoored in the final act.
The success of “Pulp Fiction” allowed for the existence of "The Way of the Gun," but perhaps unusually for this list, its successes and failures feel mostly its own. - DirectorBaltasar KormákurStarsDenzel WashingtonMark WahlbergPaula PattonTwo hardened criminals get into trouble with the US border patrol after meeting with a Mexican drug lord, and then revelations start to unfold.'2 Guns' is a by-the-numbers, nuts and bolts story of a DEA agent and a naval intelligence officer, who are both trying to infiltrate a drug cartel for their own reasons. Upon stealing drug money, they find themselves caught up in a conspiracy rooted in nastier, murkier territory than either of them expected, playing cat-and-mouse with some very dangerous people, bringing into play a wonderfully villainous Bill Paxton, looking like he's having more fun than he's had in a long time. They try to simultaneously bring justice and stay alive! The whole thing feels very familiar, as it should; if you have seen 'Tango and Cash' or 'Lethal Weapon', you already know the dynamic between the two leads and the general direction the story is headed, although there is a distinct difference in that, unlike Danny Glover's Murtaguh, neither man is particularly straight-laced. Part of what brings this film to life, though, is the fact that you cannot help but think of early Tarantino as you watch it. 'True Romance' serves as a particularly obvious touchstone for '2 Guns' in terms of dialogue, character and pace; there are in fact at least two scenes that seem to consciously mirror famous sequences in Tony Scott's movie. Perhaps most surprising to me is how well Washington and Wahlberg work as a screen partnership; with plenty of chemistry and Wahlberg responsible for a fair share of the success, it would be unfair to say he needs carrying.
Slick, stylishly shot, well-paced, with some vintage "Tarantino" moments and really snappily written, this feels like a trip back to the 90s in the best way! Okay, no big surprises, but director Kormakur knows exactly what type of film he is making here, and he hits a home run with it! - DirectorMatthew VaughnStarsDaniel CraigSienna MillerMichael GambonA successful cocaine dealer gets two tough assignments from his boss on the eve of his planned early retirement.There's no use indulging in the usual "how is this as good as Tarantino" sermonizing - it's long-since become obvious that what separates the big Q from those who walk in his footsteps is an underlying soulfulness, the sense of human characters living lives inside the referential/reverential constructs. Layer Cake falls a little short of the Tarantino model, but the comparison is inevitable. It deals with characters straight out of the British-crime-flick handbook, old, warty crime-lords and their underlings, young, half-witted hot-shots with itchy trigger fingers. The actors try bringing life to these types. Director Matthew Vaughn has one of those camera-eyes that's great for TV ads and music videos; his images are sleek but dead.
"Layer Cake" doesn't strictly cheat to unravel its plot machinations, but does rely on some unlikely help from some characters to resolve itself. It's largely gratifying, though, to follow mostly smart characters doing their best to outwit each other, as in Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown." The film indeed owes a tip of the cap to the crime goulash made famous by Elmore Leonard. The hoods of "Layer Cake" have no permanent alliances nor loyalties. Everyone gets along fine as long as they all play by the rules, which in a film like this is as likely as a cameo by Pauly Shore. The end, pinched from Brian de Palma, feels a bit abrupt and tacked-on, but nonetheless fits the film's overarching logic. Uncovered bases can expose sharp points that stick just when you think you're clear. Sometimes it's not enough to be the smartest guy in the room. - DirectorJoe CarnahanStarsJeremy PivenRyan ReynoldsRay LiottaWhen a Las Vegas performer-turned-snitch named Buddy Israel decides to turn state's evidence and testify against the mob, it seems that a whole lot of people would like to make sure he's no longer breathing.Tarantino-Esque Elements: Ice cold hitmen, all spouting too-cool-for-school one-liners and eventually crossing one another's paths in a hail of gunfire.
Joe Carnahan’s guilty pleasure “Smokin’ Aces” apes the style and narrative structure of a Tarantino film while also trying to mimic the spastic energy of a Guy Ritchie crime thriller. For the most part he pulls it off but it’s a film that never quite has a style all of its own. It’s either a film mimicking Tarantino or Ritchie and straddles that thin line throughout the entire run time.
Featuring a slew of character actors in major and minor roles (Ben Affleck has a blink and you’ll miss it role), “Smokin’ Aces” is your typical ensemble picture that spotlights a slew of despicable mercenaries and criminals, all in an effort to assassinate a local magician who has become a mafia informant. Ryan Reynolds plays his assigned protector, while much of the film is devoted to centering in on these criminals, all of whom have their own sub-plots, back stories, gruesome fates, and extended monologues. There’s also a twist ending where it all “comes together” while Carnahan delivers a solid film. - DirectorJohn CrowleyStarsCillian MurphyKelly MacdonaldColin FarrellA variety of losers in Dublin have harrowingly farcical intersecting stories of love, greed and violence.Irish crime drama in the 1990s was dominated by John Boorman's excellent, Cannes-lauded "The General," but the knock-on effect of “Pulp Fiction” finally arrived in 2003 with “Intermission,” an unexpectedly charming multi-character, multi-stranded affair (also riffing on “Magnolia” as much as anything else).
Penned by playwright Mark O’Rowe, and helmed by theater director John Crowley, making his feature debut, it follows the aftermath of the break-up between long-term couple Cillian Murphy and Kelly Macdonald, and of a fairly spectacular double-decker bus crash, events that somehow combine as Murphy teams with thuggish criminal Colin Farrell and disgruntled bus driver Brian F. O’Byrne to kidnap Macdonald’s new beau, a married bank manager, while various other characters—including Colm Meaney’s delusional copper, and Shirley Henderson’s insecure, mustached loner—circle them.
Nothing here is especially groundbreaking, bar perhaps Henderson’s storyline, but from its arresting opening, there’s a real verve and energy to proceedings that doesn’t preclude the film from slowing down and entering more contemplative modes. O’Rowe’s writing is warm and witty, and Crowley juggles tone impressively, going from charming rom-com to grittier drama in a space of a few scenes without it feeling incongruous. The performances are strong, too: Farrell’s having a blast, and Murphy and Macdonald in particular lend texture to performances that could have felt a little bland otherwise. Crowley and O’Rowe would reteam again to much greater effect a few years later for “Boy A,” which introduced Andrew Garfield to the screen, but this is a pretty decent little movie on its own. - DirectorAlan TaylorStarsWilliam ForsytheVincent GalloAdam TreseJerry and his two pals, Russ and Syd, are just looking for some easy money to help them break out of their nowhere lives in their nowhere town. Despite a bungled jewelry store heist which exposes their incompetence as criminals, a fateful event (and an old black-and-white film) convinces them that they can pull off an armored-truck robbery. While they are busy plotting their caper, their dysfunctional families spin out of control all around them.Often overshadowed by not only “Pulp Fiction” but also the somewhat similar “Bottle Rocket," “Palookaville” is now probably best remembered as the first feature from director Alan Taylor, who went on to be a key director for golden age TV dramas like “Oz,” “The Sopranos,” “Mad Men” (of which he helmed the pilot), and “Game Of Thrones,” before recently making a move into the blockbuster world with “Thor: The Dark World” and the upcoming “Terminator: Genesis.”
That’s a shame, because while “Palookaville” couldn’t possibly be more different from the latter two tentpoles, it’s a rather charming, low-key crime comedy that deserves a much better reputation. The film focuses on a trio of small-town pals, Sid (William Forsythe), Jerry (Adam Trese) and Russell (Vincent Gallo), who are fed up of their dire economic straits and collapsing personal lives, and plan an armored car robbery together, the only problem being that they don’t have violent bones in their bodies, and are entirely unsuited to lives of crime.
Unlike most of the crime movies of this era, there’s no pretense at "cool," no cutting-edge soundtrack or over-written dialogue: it’s mostly using the crime set-up to examine these three warm, slightly dim fellas, the people around them, and their relationships together. Taylor does handle the final robbery well, though, and there’s such a sweetness to the film (and in particular the often underrated Forsythe’s performance) that it’s able to coast along quite happily on that. Despite winning the Best First Film prize at Venice, it wasn’t able to gain much of an audience, but it’s better than the majority of the films on this list. - DirectorGeorge ArmitageStarsJohn CusackMinnie DriverDan AykroydMartin Blank is a professional assassin. He is sent on a mission to a small Detroit suburb, Grosse Pointe, and, by coincidence, his ten-year high school reunion party is taking place there at the same time.Tarantino-Esque Elements: The depressed hitman angle is very Tarantino, as is the outdated but cool soundtrack. Throw in extreme violence with a slight comic edge, and there are several parallels to be drawn with Tarantino's work.
One more thumbs up for this beautifully observed, witty movie that manages to be romantic and disillusioned at the same time. The key thing is the route to possible redemption rather than the (clichéd) possibility of redemption itself for the professional-killer hero. In returning to his roots, Martin Blank discovers that his apparently bizarre career choice is in fact perfectly normal; he's no more nor less suited to his job, unsatisfied by it, and unscrupulous in it, than any of the other professionals (indifferent grocery store workers, estate agents, security guys...) If there's a chance that normal society will have him back, it's because he was never really away.
Don't confuse this smart and poignant comedy with a Tarantino wannabe. In fact, think Coen brothers and you might be nearer the mark, but there's never any suspicion of tarantino's style winning out over substance (the usual, if usually questionable, critique of the Coens). If you're reading this review, chances are you've seen GPB already. What the heck, see it again, treat yourself. - DirectorPeter O'FallonStarsChristopher WalkenDenis LearySean Patrick FlaneryA group of youngsters kidnap a respected Mafia figure.If there’s one marker that helps you identify a late-'90s “Pulp Fiction” copycat, it’s the appearance of Christopher Walken, who after only cameoing in the real deal, seemingly refused to turn down any work at all so long as there was some kind of involved, possibly blackly comedic murder or kidnapping.
Here, Walken is the victim himself: a former crime boss, Charlie Barret, who’s nabbed by a quartet of college friends hoping to get $2 million from him so they can in turn retrieve one of their kidnapped sisters. Walken manages to get word to his bodyguard/enforcer Lono (Denis Leary), who sets out to track the boys down. It’s not a bad set-up, perhaps more Coens than Tarantino in premise, but certainly indebted to the latter more with its lengthy, would-be comic monologues. And Walken’s great, as ever, owning the screen every moment he’s on it.
But that’s not entirely surprising, because his kidnappers are played by the universally bland quartet of Henry Thomas, Sean Patrick Flanery (two-time offender on this list), Jay Mohr, Jeremy Sisto and Johnny Galecki (the only one to make something even close to an impression, mainly because of how annoying he is). There are a few twists and turns that are mildly surprising, but there’s a truly painful sense of dancing in the footsteps of better films throughout. Mostly ignored on release, it’s picked up a tiny cult audience in subsequent years, presumably of bros who can’t find their “Boondock Saints” DVD —enough so that a sequel is supposedly in development, though we wouldn’t hold our breath in terms of actually seeing the thing. - DirectorMichael CovertStarsScott PlankMelora WaltersJohn SavageThe film is three stories about one story, featuring an exciting and quirky cast of characters living on the edge.Tarantino-Esque Elements: A killer who sells vacuum cleaners, a pair of gangsters who shoot the *beep* about women while a body is locked in their trunk… you know the drill.
If there's one single element of Tarantino's style that is most frequently copied across this list, and most frequently falls absolutely flat, it's the snappy, digressionary, pop-culture-obsessed dialogue he wrote with such fluidity and wit in "Pulp Fiction."
"American Strays," a direct-to-dvd film starring a direct-to-dvd cast of Luke Perry, Eric Roberts and Jennifer Tilly from writer/director Michael Covert, is a case in point. The characters snip and spar at each other over the benefits of 8-tracks over CDs, or "old" Aerosmith over "new" Aerosmith, without ever convincing us that they're doing anything but reciting a lot of words that a young writer had thought would sound real cool all strung together.
And the Tarantino love-in doesn't end there: 'Strays' is a multi-stranded supposedly blackly comic, semi-parodic take on the desert/road movie, populated by oddball characters who have quirks instead of personalities (this old guy collects dolls! This suicidal dude has taken out a hit … on himself!) and who only collide in, what else, a big ol' gunfight in the Oasis diner.
Perry is extraordinarily wooden, and Tilly seems to have been playing the role of sociopathic sexpot forever, but Roberts is a minor redeeming feature of the film, cast against type as a family man who has lost his job. Still there's nothing he can really do to rescue the shoddiness of the endeavor, with Covert's movie right down to the prevalence of low angle shots, at best an example of ventriloquism. Unfortunately, we can see his lips move. - DirectorKirk WongStarsMark WahlbergLou Diamond PhillipsChristina ApplegateSocially anxious hitman Melvin Smiley, an expert in his lucrative field, goes on a job and falls in love with his kidnapping victim, turning his world upside down.Tarantino is famous (or is it infamous) for liberally borrowing from a whole host of cult Hong Kong action movies—everything from Ringo Lam's "City on Fire" (which he appropriated large swaths of for "Reservoir Dogs") to John Woo's immortal classic "The Killer"—and everything in between. The weird boomerang effect was that because Tarantino was ripping off Hong Kong cinema, then Hong Kong cinema must be cool in America now too. Tarantino did a fair share of this himself, introducing American audiences to a plucky performer by the name of Jackie Chan via "Rumble in the Bronx" and releasing Wong Kar-Wai's "Chungking Express" through his distribution imprint. Of course the downside to this was that other, less tasteful producers and studios thought that since Tarantino had made it cool, they could also try and import that very specific Hong Kong aesthetic for American audiences … which resulted in heaping piles of *beep* like Che-Kirk Wong's nearly unwatchable schlock-a-thon "The Big Hit."
Wong, who directed the hit Chan film "Crime Story" in 1993, leaves any traces of subtlety or substance behind, in this bloody, garish tale about a hitman (Mark Wahlberg) who gets involved in a bumbling kidnapping scheme. It's loud, it's obnoxious, it's sexist, and worst of all … it's boring. What makes the whole failed enterprise even more baffling is the fact that John Woo produced this piece of *beep* a year after making his best American film "Face/Off." You can't blame him for wanting the Hong Kong aesthetic to become viable domestically, but sadly something major was lost in the translation. - DirectorSteven SoderberghStarsGina CaranoEwan McGregorMichael FassbenderA black ops super soldier seeks payback after she is betrayed and set up during a mission.Haywire (2011)
The Film: Steven Soderbergh's arse-kicking tale of a female assassin burned by her CIA handlers, and ploughing her way through a rip-roaring journey of revenge.
Tarantino-Esque Elements: A badass female on the hunt for revenge, taking down a stable of recognisable male oppressors in spectacularly violent fashion… it's a bit like a streamlined version of Kill Bill .
Mr Purple Or Mr Pink: There's an argument that Kill Bill could have done with some streamlining, and this punchy adrenaline ride is a good case for the prosecution.