Reservoir Dogs
(Quentin Tarantino, 1992)
Quentin Tarantino never attended film school. He worked at a video archives in the greater Los Angeles area until Lawrence Bender helped him make this film a reality. Reservoir Dogs put Quentin Tarantino on the map at the age of twenty-seven and proved that despite never attending film school, that he was far more talented as a director than 99% of film school students who usually find themselves hopelessly enslaved to making art-house flicks for student film festivals.
Reservoir Dogs avoids many of the pitfalls associated with debut films; it was appropriately financed, featured a talented cast, and most importantly had a write and director who had a clear vision for what he wanted the film to be and wasn’t afraid to tip genre stereotypes on their sides in order to add a further element of allure.
I believe firmly that a huge reason to the film’s lasting impact is that Tarantino was an immensely talented writer for script and dialogue (especially dialogue) and also knew how to effectively bring differing directing styles to his movies in order to give them a personal touch. The genius of the film plays out in that the tricky non-linear plot line (which Tarantino expanded and elaborated with in future films) is kept relatively simple here his first movie but gives the plot creedence in the sense of it being an unorthodox way of revealing parts of the storyline which makes the blood-soaked finale even more interesting and addictive in order to sit through the entire movie.
Another aspect which caused Reservoir Dogs to enter the pantheon of 90s pop culture is the dialogue, moreover Quentin’s ability to write amazing dialogue that is both edgy and filled with references to movies, music, and pop culture. The witty dialogue doesn’t just come and go in spades but lasts the entire film with the very first conversation in the movie being about what Tarantino’s cameo role as Mr. Brown thinks the true meaning of Madonna’s song “Like A Virgin” is about (lets just say for those who havent seen it that Charles Bronson’s role in The Great Escape gets brought up).
The film stars an entirely-male cast of Lawrence Tierney as mob boss Joe Cabot, Chris Penn as his son “Nice Guy” Eddie Cabot, Tim Roth as Mr. Orange, Harvey Keitel (who was instrumental in casting and making the film more than just a script and a pipe dream for Tarantino) as Mr. White, Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde, Steve Buscemi as Mr. Pink (my personal favourite character in the movie), Tarantino himself as Mr. Brown, and Eddie Bunker as Mr. Blue, a character we see for all of five minutes and whom many forget was even in the film.
I personally have no interest in crime of any sort, but Reservoir Dogs itself is a fantastically thought out film about everything going wrong during a heist operation. There may be a lot of blood, attempted burnings, torture scenes, gunfights, and a ton of early seventies hits courtesy of K-Billy, but at the end of the film, the scope of it’s strength hits every viewer; it’s a fantastic movie and there’s no way around that fact.
