"Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite?"
Reservoir Dogs (1992) is Quentin Tarantino's breakout hit, a stylish heist movie. The story revolves around a diamond robbery with an undercover cop and the madness that follows.
I love the camerawork in Reservoir Dogs it's very simple and effective and one of the things that really sets this film apart from other indie or low budget films.
I also like how simple and stylish the film is. The 70s music is a very nice and memorable touch. Costumes are again simple and stylish and yet it's something probably all the actors just had. And the color names are a great idea (a la The Taking of Pelham One Two Three [1974]) that also just adds an extra level of cool to the film. Indie filmmakers could (and do) learn a lot from this film.
I've seen this film many times, one of the things I often find myself asking at the end is "what the hell was the point of Mr. Blue?!" And to this day I think the film could be just as good without him, he doesn't do anything at all. It's possible he's there just to add to the death count or to show that how dangerous theft and robbery is or that it isn't always profitable (though you'd think the end would show that?) But really he's just kind of there. In a film like this with many characters, why add one more who doesn't do anything?
One of my favorite things about this movie is how simple the idea for the story is. It's a heist film (like you've seen a million times before) except with two main differences, it's told out of order (non-chronological) and with out ever showing the actual heist.
The non-linear storytelling (a precedent for most Tarantino films that follow) is really ingeniously done. I've heard many people use this film as an example of a non 3-act film but that's completely wrong. This film actually still follows the 3-act storytelling structure, it just does it without going in order. The scenes are revealed in a chapter by chapter method basing each chapter around a different main character's story specifically, and then the layout of these chapters (which comes first) is setup in the order so that for the first half of the film the viewer is trying to figure out who the undercover mole is, and the second half of the film explains how that came to be and then the conclusion. This is a really well thought out way to tell a story and I think it just works perfectly.
The film has a really great ensemble cast. Tarantino chose a selection of great actors who were almost unknowns at the time each of them (except Harvey Keitel of course) had a couple hits each but were on the cusp of really blowing up. I particularly really enjoy the performances of Michael Madsen as the cool but hard to nail down Mr. Blonde, Harvey Keitel as the robber with a heart Mr. White, Steve Buscemi as the comically freaked out Mr. Pink and Tim Roth who has the very difficult but convincing role of Mr. Orange. There's some really great performances in this movie. And I like how each of the character's is written so that they really seem like real people. They have strong enough personalities (and actors) that you really don't have any problem telling them apart, even though they're dressed the same and don't have real names.
And lastly I want to mention that this movie just has a lot of really interesting and simple little things it does. For example, I like how the music that's playing dies down when Mr. Blonde goes outside the warehouse to get a can of gasoline from his car and then climbs up again as he returns. And I love how during the "commode story" seamlessly cuts between 3 (or so) times this story is being told and then ends in a literal showing of the events in the story that really makes you feel the suspense of the scene.
Reservoir Dogs (1992) is a stylish well thought-out film that borrows from a lot of movies you've seen before, but puts them together in a way so genius you're going to wish you thought of it. And it's an amazing example of how you can make a great film and tell a simple story on a small independent budget. 5/5 Stars.
Happy watching!
Want more Tarantino goodness? Check back all month for my Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained.
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