Plump Fiction (1997)

Rating: C-

Dir: Bob Koherr
Star: Julie Brown, Tommy Davidson, Paul Dinello, Dan Castellaneta

While there’s certainly scope for a parody of Quentin Tarantino, this is probably too good-natured to work; satire is best when it’s barbed, pointed and dipped in acid. Instead, while I admired how Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and Natural Born Killers were welded together into something ever bit as coherent as any Tarantino work, the fact that QT saw the script and pronounced it funny tells you much. What you get here is more much worshipful recreation than anything: flashbacks, flash-forwards, flash-sideways, gratuitous pop-culture references.

How much you take away from this perhaps depends on familiarity with the films parodied, as some of the humour is likely in the details. However, to this non QT-fanboy, the best moments were when the film expanded beyond the limited worldview of Tarantino, such as the Independent Film Cafe (watch out for the genuine Steve Buscemi, in among the fake Christopher Walken, Holly Hunter and Spike Lee). Pam Segall is absolutely pitch-perfect as Mallory, in voice, movement and looks, and it’d be interesting to see what writer-director Koherr is capable of, when not copying someone else’s style, for there is enough going on to suggest some talent. But not enough to sustain an entire movie, and it topples over into self-indulgence, over-reliant on cameos from the likes of Sandra Bernhard and Judy Tenuta.