Stealing Pulp Fiction has a promising premise: It’s a comedy about a couple of film nerds (Jon Rudnitsky and Karan Soni) who decide to steal Quentin Tarantino’s personal 35mm print of Pulp Fiction from the Tarantino-owned New Beverly theater. They do this with the help of their therapist (Jason Alexander), and a female accomplice played by the daughter (Cazzie David) of the man whose TV alter ego Alexander long portrayed, around the time of the original Pulp Fiction mania.
This presents an opportunity to skewer a certain type of obsessed Movie Guy, the kind who emerged en masse in Pulp Fiction’s wake (I was one of those guys.) Had the movie been set in the past, rather than the present day, these guys almost certainly would’ve been video store employees. Had it been told in the style of Pulp Fiction itself, it might’ve worked.
Unfortunately, the film, written and directed by Danny Turkiewicz, bungles its potential. The heist plot makes little sense and has no payoff. It’s rarely funny, two of the four main performers are bad, and it leaves opportunities for satire on the table. I don’t recognize these people as any variety of cineaste whom I’ve ever heard of, much less the specific type who’d steal a print of Pulp Fiction from the New Beverly.
Jason Alexander, sporting an incongruous soul patch as the sort of low-rent therapist who practices out of the back of a karate studio, is responsible for most of the film’s laughs. However, Seinfeld fans are used to seeing some of the funniest writing in history come out of his mouth, and that’s not the case there.
Rudnitsky, who was briefly on Saturday Night Live, holds his own in what’s essentially the lead role. But that’s more than I can say for Soni, one of the whiniest, most off-putting performers currently working. At least this time, he’s not in a romcom, like the pandemic “comedy” 7 Days. Their female sidekick is played by Cazzie David, the daughter of Larry, an actress with negative on-screen charisma.
Meanwhile, an actor shows up as “Tarantino,” looking and sounding not the slightest bit like him. They’ve given him a giant chin, for some reason, although at least he wears a shirt that’s closer to the mark. As for paying tribute to Pulp Fiction, there are half-assed homages here and there, but it’s not a direct visual parody of Pulp Fiction itself, of Tarantino’s other work, or of any of the long succession of Pulp Fiction rip-offs that followed in the second half of the 1990s. The film has a lot of scenes set in diners, while the soundtrack has a few instances of the surf rock featured in the real film, and one scene where the characters dance (although not like Uma Thurman).
But neither the style nor the themes are similar in any way. It’s a heist movie, but Pulp Fiction… isn’t a heist movie. Reservoir Dogs is, but looks nothing like this. Stealing Pulp Fiction feels more inspired by Wes Anderson’s debut Bottle Rocket, another comedy from the mid-1990s about novices trying to pull off a heist, than by anything Tarantino has ever done.
I’m not sure what the rules were for fair use, but the film can use the names of Pulp Fiction and Tarantino, and a version of Tarantino’s likeness. But it’s not allowed to use any footage or music from the actual film, the names of any of the non-Tarantino actors, or the real name of the New Beverly. The biggest failure is it’s a movie about a topic that could use a skewering, and didn’t get around to doing it.