Reservoir Dogs

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Wow, just completed my 11th rewatch of Reservoir Dogs. This film is a tactical masterpiece, truly one of Tarantino’s most underrated works, and in my opinion, arguably his best.

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Crime boss Joe Cabot brings together a group of criminals to perform a big one-off job. To protect each other, they all use colour coded names. However on the day of the job, the police ambush the gang and each makes their own getaway. As the gang comes together at their warehouse meeting point they realise that someone within the gang must have tipped the police or be an undercover. The accusations and suspicions escalate into violence in the confines of the warehouse. When this film came out in the UK it caused an absolute firestorm of controversy over it's violence, even to the point that it was banned in the UK for a while. I still find this absurd and am very glad we have moved to a more tolerant society where generally the BBFC protect vulnerable groups but let adults decide for themselves. Looking at the media's adoring welcome for the ultra violent Kill Bill one can't help but marvel at how things have changed. Looking at Reservoir Dogs now (or even then!) it simply isn't THAT violent. However what it is is very sudden and all the more powerful for it. Tarantino directs the film and writes the film in such a way that it was impossible to ignore him even if the film was only a cult hit. The dialogue is both witty at points but, more importantly, very tough and loaded with testosterone. It is the writing that makes us like these coffee shop jokers at the start before shocking us by suddenly throwing us into a backseat bloodbath. The entire job happens off camera, and only occasionally do we actually see the immediate effect of violence - usually we get the aftermath. It is incredibly tight and very tense throughout, I was about 16 when my father took me to see this film - it has stayed with me since and I still considered it to be one of the best `job gone wrong' films of my generation. It may not be original (there's a thin line between a homage and a rip off) but it is certainly effectively done. The cast are excellent and turn the hardboiled dialogue into convincing scenes. Keitel is wonderful. His character is a father figure of sorts and he is wildly out of control at times and balanced at others. Likewise Buscemi is wide-eyed and freaking out for much of the film, but he does it well. Roth is more balanced but is still good for it; it is his job to carry the emotional weight of the film and he does it well, despite a wandering American accent at times. Madsen is great, maybe not the best character but wildly out of control. Tierney was a great piece of casting, as was Bunker. Penn is good but not the best of the cast. Tarantino mercifully has little acting to do, but it is his film as writer and director. The flashbacks during the film was a brave way to do it but it really works well - mixing stories with flashbacks and so on. No matter what the time of the scene, it all keeps moving tensely towards the climax. It may be a homage and not as original as some films but so what - it is tight and tense, macho, violent, funny and very enjoyable.

To quote the great Terry Rossio: "There are many films with the goal 'to find your way home.' But there's only one film where a girl clicks together a pair of ruby slippers." What that basically means is that the goal of many stories is essentially the same. The 'find your way home' example is used in films such as E.T., The Wizard of Oz, and Back To The Future, just to name a few. Only one of those has ruby slippers. Only one has a bicycle fly past the moon. Only one has a time-traveling Delorean. The goal of 'criminals getting together to pull off the perfect heist' has been used is such films as The Killing, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and City on Fire...just to name a few. Only one had an un-chronological order to the events. Until Reservoir Dogs. Only one had the criminals use color-coded names to keep their identities anonymous. Until Reservoir Dogs. Only one had an undercover cop infiltrate a gang of crooks and befriend another crook, only to get shot during the process of the robbery, until he confesses the truth to his new friend. Until Reservoir Dogs. If you cannot see that this entire film is just a cut and paste job, then you have to be mentally impaired. And that is not an insult. As far as originality goes, Tarantino hasn't got to that point yet. The point where he creates something on his own. This is just a second hand, second rate cut and paste job that is only mildly entertaining on first viewing. Upon seeing the film subsequent times, it only gets worse, and it's (very many) flaws only stand out to an even more obvious extent. This is a bad movie even for someone who has never directed anything before in his life. The film starts with a discussion that might as well be about Jesus, pancake syrup, or the duties of the school crossing guard. None of these have anything to do with the story...much like the conversation we see before the opening credits roll. Which brings me to another discussion that takes place later on in the film...something about Lady E and a superglue incident. How is this any of our business? How does it advance the story? What do we get out of it besides a possible forced laugh of pity? It's not our business, it does not advance the story, and we get nothing out of that scene at all. You can literally remove it and be left with the same exact film, just without that scene. From the point before that scene started to after it finished, NOTHING HAS CHANGED AT ALL. It's complete filler. A total waste of time. This movie would have been pretty good without extraneous scenes floating around, popping up at random, and taking entirely too long to finish. The best example of this is the whole Tim Roth segment. It interrupts the flow of the story and it simply not fun to watch. It's a huge dead moment right before the climax of the movie and it's very easy to simply lose interest at that point. When the finale does come, it's more of a "good, it's over" point rather than any kind of realization. Tarantino couldn't even create a good third act when he literally just copied the third act from City on Fire, and in some cases...shot for shot! Resertvoir Dogs showed us nothing that we have not seen before...literally. The only positive thing about it is the cast, and that's even not so great. Most of the dialogue is just screaming and f-words being used like it's going out of style (and it has, thanks to films like this), and the "infamous" and "extreme" violence is about on par with The Lion King. So if you're thinking about watching this movie...just watch a good heist movie instead. I suggest: The Killing The Asphalt Jungle The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

After watching this half a dozen times with a biased, anti-Tarantino, "what the heck is so great about this guy, anyway" view(which, as most anyone watching any film with that view and a fair bit of self-knowledge will tell you, is a rather fruitless practice in pointlessness... if you've decided you're not going to like it, there's very little reason to think that you will, no matter how good it is; you need an open mind), I finally decided to give it a fair hearing... and I saw it for what it is. An unusual film, at least for its time. A stylish film full of cool dialog, cinematography, editing and music. The whole thing comes together perfectly and is very short of creating a sublime film experience. The plot is excellently written and told. The pace is perfect. I wasn't bored for a second, nor did I ever really want it to move faster or slower. The cinematography is magnificent, and incredibly well-integrated. Pans, dolly trips and, lest we forget, the stationary shots... all perfectly used. Very stylized. The acting is top-notch all-round. With most of the cast being name actors, this is no surprise, but they really do shine. Madsen, Buscemi, Keitel, Roth... all incredible. The one role that had less than good... well, let's be honest, it had rather awful acting. I'm speaking, of course, of Tarantino's character. Now, don't get me wrong; in From Dusk Till Dawn, this man did great. But just about any other time I've seen him act, he just doesn't seem to have the first clue. Being a film-maker myself(albeit on somewhat of a smaller scale than Quentin), I can relate to wanting to cast yourself in a role... but sometimes, you just need to face up to the facts, and admit it if you can't act. Still, that is a minor complaint. Another one might be that there are at least two fairly big characters that seem completely and entirely expendable... they had no real role in the action and could very, very easily have been cut with no real loss to the overall product. I won't name them here, but anyone who's seen the film will know who I'm talking about. All the characters, however, are well-written and their actions credible. Tarantino knows his stuff when it comes to writing... something that also shows in the dialog, which, although somewhat drawn-out at times, is exceptional. Well-delivered, too. When it comes to direction, he shows how talented he is, as well. The film is very well put together. The editing is great, with the non-linear time-line telling the story far better than a "regular" film ever could. One of the many Tarantino-fans, in fact, the very person who originally talked me into watching this film, once told me that he had heard of someone editing films with such time-lines - this, Pulp Fiction, Memento, etc. - so that their time-lines were perfectly linear. I'm sorry, I entirely respect their right to do such a thing... and I won't claim that their doing so has less artistic value than the original films in any way... but I refuse to watch that. A big part of this being so well-told lies in the time-line. Also, I'm a firm believer of watching something the way the makers intended it. Don't edit, don't censor, don't make your own version and pass it off as anything but just that... your own version, and not the original. Sorry, rant over. Finally, I just need to comment on the music... the soundtrack of this is just great. Tarantino collected so many amazing 70's tunes for this film and used them great. All in all, just a really, really good film. Very little keeps this from being a perfect ten, most of which I've covered here. I recommend this to anyone who can stomach the violence and who likes their films with a side of style. 8/10

It's hard to get your head around the fact that 'Reservoir Dogs' has been around for ten years. It's almost difficult to remember a time before Tarantino made such an enormous impact (good and bad) on movies, but I saw this movie first time round before the hype. All I knew was that, like another "dog" movie from the same era that I saw, 'Man Bites Dog', that it was supposed to be violent, funny and disturbing, and that it starred a long time favourite of mine Harvey Keitel, and Tim Roth, who I mainly knew from Greenaway's 'The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover'. Okay, I hope it's good I thought as I waited in the cinema listening to some half remembered 70s A.M. pop and a strange conversation about Madonna's sex life (the cinema was playing the soundtrack album before the main feature, but what did we know). Then the movie itself, electrifying and fascinating from the word go. It's impossible to describe the impact of seeing this for the first time without knowing what to expect! Still one of my greatest movie memories. Ten years later I've seen it countless times so the surprise has obviously worn off, but it is still a brilliant movie because beneath the violence and wise-cracks of Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi - 'In The Soup'), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen - 'Thelma & Louise'), and Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn - 'At Close Range'), there is a lot of depth, that being the very human relationship between Mr. White (Keitel) and Mr.Orange (Roth). To me that is one of the things that elevates this above the many lame and unoriginal "Tarantinoesque" movies we've had to endure since 'Pulp Fiction'. His imitators just simply don't have a clue! Simply brilliant cinema, and a modern classic. This is absolutely essential viewing!

RESERVOIR DOGS exploded onto cinema screens in 1992 and I can still remember the shock waves it caused due to the excessive violence . If memory serves me right Glasgow Council came very close to banning it from cinema chains in the city and they weren't alone in trying to do this either as newspaper headlines and word of mouth screamed how violent the movie was as Quentin Tarantino became the most infamous and influential movie director of the mid 1990s . RESERVOIR DOGS was finally allowed a British network TV transmission in the Summer of 1997 on channel 4 . I was rubbing my hands in anticipation at seeing this movie . After seeing the movie I felt disgusted . Not because it was a movie whose violent content had sickened me but because I'd fallen for the hype like a total shmuck . This must be the most overrated movie of the 1990s !!!!! SLIGHT SPOILERS !!!!! First of all the characters meet in a diner . If you're carrying out a heist is it a good idea to gather in a public place where potential witnesses can identify you ? And would a bunch of robbers be interested in discussing the lyrics of Madonna or the films of John Holmes ? It might be cool and trendy to discuss pop culture but in the context of this movie it's illogical . Soon the narrative switches to a warehouse where the robbers have arrived after their disastrous heist and we're treated to some very obvious exposition : " F***in' sick f*** . Why'd he do that ? Did you see what he did to that girl ? How old was she ? Nineteen ? F***in' sick motherf***er " After the movie finished this is what bothered me - I had expected the movie to end by showing us the massacre at the bank BUT THIS NEVER HAPPENS ! and I can't describe how cheated I felt . Okay we're shown the various robbers making their getaways but not once are we shown the much referred to robbery itself which made me feel very disappointed , not because I wanted to see teenage girls get murdered but because it instinctively felt like it should have been the centrepiece scene / climax scene of the movie As for the rest of the movie's reputation for violence it's ill deserved . There's buckets of blood but many , many movies also feature buckets of blood and gore and don't receive half as much attention as RESERVOIR DOGS . Remember the much criticised scene of the cop getting his ear cut off ? Didn't anyone notice that this actually happens off camera ? Ironically enough the only murder that did disturb me - " What this cop ? " BANG - is chilling because it's committed so coldly not because it's graphic in any way . Is there anything I like about RESERVOIR DOGS ? Harvey Keitel is the type of actor I'd watch even if it involved him reading out his shopping list , and the scene where it's revealed who the undercover cop is memorable along with the compelling " How's he going to explain that to the bad guys when they return ? " storyline . But at the end of the day I can't help thinking RESERVOIR DOGS is ruined by its much hyped reputation . WHITE HEAT is a very similar movie and a much better one RESERVOIR DOGS gets six bones out of a possible ten

When critics say that some films are pornographic because of the way they depict violence, they are referring to the type of violence that appears in "Reservoir Dogs." The film maker's artistic judgment seems to be clouded by a bloodthirsty hatred of police officers. I am thinking particularly of a scene in which a captive police officer is mutilated by his criminal captors. The feeling conveyed to me was one of sadistic joy in the victim's suffering, a sense that he deserved to be mutilated simply because he was a cop. I am sure that some misguided admirers of this film applauded the scene precisely for that reason. Unfortunately, a lot of people hate the police, and for them such a film functions as escapist "entertainment," but "Reservoir Dogs" seems to lack any redeeming value of another kind, like a snuff movie. The only other time I've seen such poor artistic and ethical judgment in a film was in "Caligula," by the producer Bob Guccione, where in one scene a Roman aristocrat forces a soldier to drink a gallon of wine and then cuts his belly open for the fun of seeing the liquid spill out of it. Some gullible members of the audience actually cheered when they saw that. Like Guccione, Tarantino, director of "Reservoir Dogs" may be a big fan of * and possibly he doesn't make the distinction between sex and violence. Certainly everything of his I've seen looks like a porno film stylistically, but he focuses mainly on bloodshed and torture instead of lust and love. Unless you're in the mood for a tasteless exercise in violence, you would do much better to rent John Huston's "Asphalt Jungle," one of the best and most intelligently made caper gone wrong movies ever made.