PLUMP FICTION (1997) Reviewed by Jerry Saravia July 21st, 2001
As with "Scary Movie" parodying "Scream," it is simply a real effort to sit through "Plump Fiction," a parody of "Pulp Fiction" and "Reservoir Dogs." Why? Well, the jokes are simply recycling dialogue bits and other gags from "Pulp Fiction" without the finesse or pungent wit Tarantino brought to his own work. The concept behind "Plump Fiction" just can't possibly work anyway.
The filmmakers of this film forget that satire and parody search for the sublime and the ridiculous in other notable films that may have unintentionally funny scenes or that have material ripe for parody. Keenan Ivory Wayans might have done better satirizing "Nightmare on Elm Street" and the "Friday the 13th" films more so than "Scream" when making "Scary Movie." The reason is because "Scream" was a postmodern slasher flick that actually winked at the audience already, providing the humorous ambition of actually satirizing and deconstructing the slasher genre. Say what you will about "Scream" but I never took it seriously as a modern horror film, at least not in the same breadth as "Halloween" or "The Exorcist."
The same problem plagues "Plump Fiction." There is a scene in the horrendous "Spy Hard" where Leslie Nielsen and a female lead dance at a club mimicking the expressions of John Travolta and Uma Thurman's famous dance sequence from "Pulp Fiction." The problem is that the sequence from "Pulp" was a riff on Travolta's dance numbers from "Saturday Night Fever" and a riff on the Batdance from the pulpy "Batman" TV series. It was already mocking and satirizing those pop-culture icons. So how can you possibly spoof or satirize something that is already a spoof? It goes without saying that "Plump Fiction" has a similar dance sequence that is actually funny but not at the same level as "Pulp" was.
"Plump" basically reiterates most scenes from "Pulp" and Reservoir." Scenes involving Sandra Bernhard and some Reservoir Nuns, not to mention Forrest Gump and Nell, hardly elicit much of a smile. Best bits involve Pamela Segall and Matthew Glave as the Coxes, riffing on "Natural Born Killers" which is certainly ripe for parody. Segall does an excellent impersonation of Juliette Lewis and her body language - the difference is that she is in on the joke and it is well-executed. Tommy Davidson is also terrific as Julius, the Samuel L. Jackson character, and at least he brings his own persona to the proceedings. I also enjoyed a clever scene that parodied "Clerks" and "Reality Bites." But many of these gags seem desperate at best.
The Zucker brothers have made spoofing a household name but consider the sources they were spoofing. "Airplane" spoofed all disaster films in general. "Top Secret" spoofed all spy films and Elvis pictures. And so on. Their targets were films that were not aiming to be funny at all. "Pulp Fiction" was a black comedy that was riffing and deconstructing all of film noir in general. That is what the filmmakers of "Plump Fiction" have forgotten.
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