Quentin Tarantino began his career as an independent filmmaker with the release of Reservoir Dogs in 1992. It stars Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, and Lawrence Tierney. Tarantino has a minor role, as does criminal-turned-author Eddie Bunker.
Reservoir Dogs
IMDB: 8.3 (886,571 votes)
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
There’s no denying that Reservoir Dogs is a hugely important and influential film; after hitting the big time when it was first released back in ’92 by a then-unknown filmmaker by the name of Quentin Tarantino, it paved the way for a new era of independent films and changed Hollywood forever. Often hailed as the “greatest independent film of all-time,” Reservoir Dogs cannot be underestimated as an important cinematic milestone.
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Plot summary
Six criminals, who are strangers to each other, are hired by a crime boss, Joe Cabot, to carry out a diamond robbery. Right at the outset, they are given false names with the intention that they won’t get too close and will concentrate on the job instead. They are completely sure that the robbery is going to be a success. But, when the police show up right at the time and the site of the robbery, panic spreads amongst the group members, and two of them are killed in the subsequent shootout, along with a few policemen and civilians. When the remaining people assemble at the premeditated rendezvous point (a warehouse), they begin to suspect that one of them is an undercover cop.
The movie feels like it’s going to be terrific, but Tarantino’s script doesn’t have much curiosity about these guys. He has an idea and trusts the idea to drive the plot. As for the movie, I liked what I saw, but I wanted more. I know the story behind the movie – Tarantino promoted the project from scratch, on talent and nerve – and I think it’s quite an achievement for a first-timer. It was made on a low budget. But the part that needs work didn’t cost money. It’s the screenplay. Having created the characters and fashioned the outline, Tarantino doesn’t do much with his characters except to let them talk too much, especially when they should be unconscious from shock and loss of blood. Reservoir Dogs is only about what is happening in the moment and nothing else. There’s nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that – fundamentally – it renders the picture as Tarantino’s least progressive and intelligent (and therefore less interesting) movie.
The end of the movie has no logic
Everybody knows the story regarding the final shootout in Reservoir Dogs, which sees Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn), Big Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and Mr White (Harvey Keitel) facing off against one another in a Mexican stand-off. Mr White points his gun at Joe; Joe points his gun at Mr White; Nice Guy Eddie also points his Mr White. When the scene reaches breaking point, everybody’s guns go off, but – somehow – all three characters wind up getting shot. And that’s including Nice Guy Eddie, by the way, who nobody actually had their gun pointed at. Most people don’t notice this on their first or even second viewings, because they’re too caught up in the movie, but it’s odd. Now, according to Tarantino, Chris Penn’s squib went off before it was supposed to, but he left the shot in the movie so that “it gave people something to talk about.” If you slow down the movie, you can also see Mr White’s gun going off for a second time as he falls to the ground… the problem is that it’s facing in the wrong direction, bent towards Joe. Thing is, Tarantino’s decision to leave the “Who shot Eddie?” thing as a mystery means that, ultimately, the shootout makes no sense. The end of the movie has no logic or weight behind it, which clashes with everything we’ve seen.
This film is decent but not a very good film. It has some originality and clever humour but all squished with a boring plot and uninteresting characters. There’s nothing interesting with the “boring” characters and “bad” story. The actings were relatively decent and this film is nowhere near one of the best films ever. It is the violence that pushes the film into the realm of the utterly contemptible. There have been films with more violence and with more explicit violence, but few revels in its violence to the extent of RESERVOIR DOGS. The film doesn’t use violence to show cause and effect, or to make a social statement, or to reflect reality, or even for cheap shock effect. It is violence for the sake of violence. The violence in DOGS is purely sadistic; a sleazy, pornographic celebration of inhuman cruelty.
Reservoir 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. The story is very thin, and to sum up, the what you see on the screen most of the time: there’s a bunch of cookie-cutter emotionally retarded tough-guys who compete over who can deliver the coolest and toughest lines to each other and wave their shiny guns at each other with the right sort of swagger. That sort of thing is just so ho-hum, clichéd, and juvenile that I felt like tuning out right away.
I love Tarantino films as much as the next guy and I would say Pulp Fiction is the best movie I have ever seen. But I think Reservoir Dogs gets a lot more credit than it deserves compared to pulp fiction and I don’t know why but RD is what everyone knows Tarantino for.
I’m not saying it is a bad movie but I just didn’t enjoy it as it seemed like it was too drawn out and was just set in one room for most of the movie but hey, that’s just my opinion.
“I don’t wanna kill anybody. But if I gotta get out that door, and you’re standing in my way, one way or the other, you’re gettin’ outta my way.”
talking to a member of the other gangSTEVE BUSCEMI – Mr. Pink
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