Harvey Keitel

In Pulp Fiction (1994), Harvey Keitel’s Wolf arrives in a dinner jacket and restores some pace to the scene. We were relieved: Tarantino’s talk has begun to drag, and here is someone with something practical to do. Keitel gives the efficient fixer enough authority to be useful without making a show of being dangerous. It is a small part, played with a clear sense of what the film needs.

That economy is not the whole career, though the criminal parts can make it seem so. His early work with Martin Scorsese runs from his debut in Who’s That Knocking at My Door? (1968) through the breakthrough lead in Mean Streets (1973) to Sport, the pimp in Taxi Driver (1976). He researched Sport with real-world counterparts; the familiar tough-guy label tells us little about that work. We strongly recommend Taxi Driver, but its concentration on Robert De Niro’s Travis gives the other characters too little room. Keitel’s presence cannot fix that; a supporting actor still needs space in the writing.

After a period of supporting roles and European films in the 1980s, Reservoir Dogs (1992) restored him to prominence as both lead actor and co-producer. His Mr White helps hold the ensemble together, while his support for Tarantino belongs to a wider habit of backing first-time and independent directors. Between Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, The Piano (1993) cast him as George Baines, a rare romantic lead. That casting is worth remembering whenever the criminal roles threaten to become the whole account of him. He later returned to Scorsese for The Irishman (2019).

Pulp Fiction also shows the limits of what even well-judged casting can repair. We rate the film highly, but Keitel’s brisk intervention does not remove the slackness elsewhere, any more than his preparation gives Sport a larger share of Taxi Driver. Tarantino makes good use of his restraint: someone has to bring this talkative film to order. Start there for the compact demonstration, then try Reservoir Dogs for a part that gives him more to do.