Michael Caine stars as Mickey King, a writer who makes his living cranking out cheap paperback detective novels, usually as a ghost writer. King is approached to ghost write an autobiographical novel for a famous movie star, in which he is offered a large sum of money. King agrees and is shipped off to meet Preston, a one-time movie star known for his gangster roles, who so happens to hang out with the real thing is in spare time. After Preston is murdered at a party, Mickey begins to investigate and ending to his story, similar to one of the heroes in his books. The re-teaming of Get Carter collaborators Mike Hodges and Michael Caine, Pulp is comedy-drama that is fun, but ultimately a let down considering their previous effort. The film has a very playful tone, as Caine's character narrates the story, often chiming in with wise-cracks about what is being shown on screen. The most interesting aspect of this film is how descriptive the narration is, being very true to the character- a novelist who describes things in extreme detail. The film pokes fun at the genre conventions, yet ultimately becomes the type of pulpy detective story it spends so much time making fun of. Ultimately, the film falters because the second half almost completely abandons the playfulness of the first half entirely, opting to focus much more on the crime story which isn't terribly interesting. Pulp does contain a great fun performance by Mickey Rooney, as the asshole actor Preston Gilbert, but ultimately its pacing and bland detective story take over, making it far less interesting than it could have been. 6.5/10
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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