Today, it can be easy to forget what an impact Quentin Tarantino had on pop culture in the 90s. The one-two punch of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction inspired a generation of young and aspiring filmmakers to believe that anyone could make their own film. Suddenly, you didn’t have to be a film school graduate to call yourself a filmmaker. You could just be someone who loved movies and who was willing to keep hustling until you had something you could slip into Sundance. That was the feeling, anyway. The 90s were full of films about eccentric criminals who talked a lot and who loved pop culture, only three of which were directed by Quentin Tarantino. Some of them were good. Most of them were not.
Destiny Turns On The Radio was one of the first films to rip-off Pulp Fiction and it felt more cynical than most because it was directed by Jack Baran, who wasn’t even a video store clerk. He was a producer of films like The Big Easy and Barfly, an industry veteran ripping off two films directed by someone who was, at that time, still an outsider. The film tells a story that had plenty of Tarantino elements, including Quentin Tarantino himself. Tarantino signed to play Johnny Destiny right after Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.
Johnny Destiny is a gambler who is apparently also a God. He emerges from a lightning-filled pool and his dialogue is full of pseudo-philosophy. He is driving through the desert when he picks up Julian (Dylan McDermott) and gives Julian a lift to Las Vegas. Johnny Destiny is taking prison escapee Julian on a ride so that Julian can face his destiny. Julian wants to recover some money from a bank job that he pulled off with Thoreau (James Le Gros) but it turns out that, when Johnny Destiny emerged from that pool, he also stole all the money. (There’s no specific reason for Thoreau to be named after the famous philosopher, beyond the film trying to make itself seem deep by drawing in everyone who read Walden in AP English.) Julian wants to get back together with Lucille (Nancy Travis), a singer who performs songs more appropriate for a 20s speakeasy than a Las Vegas lounge. Lucille is involved with a gangster (Jim Belushi). Belushi sings Vivia Las Vegas but otherwise, this is one of his more boring performances.
Like so many of the Pulp Fiction rip-offs of the 90s, Destiny Turns On The Radio is all self-conscious attitude and cool style, full of references to pop culture that fall flat because there’s no real thought behind them. Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction were full of style but they also told compelling stories. Destiny Turns On The Radio is all style and little else and the cast never comes together the way that the actors in Tarantino’s first two movies did. Watching this film, I realized why Dylan McDermott and Nancy Travis both found more success on television than in feature films. The film posits Tarantino (as Johnny Destiny) as the epitome of cool but it then burdens him with the type of dialogue that he would have cut by the time he started a second draft.
Coming hot on the heels of the success of Pulp Fiction, Destiny Turns On The Radio actually led to a few years where many critics assumed Tarantino would be a two-trick wonder. It was thought lightning struck twice but it would never strike a third time and Tarantino would spend the rest of his career as almost a parody of his earlier success. Luckily, Tarantino proved them wrong and Destiny Turned On The Radio turned out to be not his career’s destination but instead just a detour.
Through the Shattered Lens 