Reservoir Dogs (1992) Surprisingly Emotional and Effortlessly Cool Crime Classic (Blu-Ray Review)

CONTAINS SPOILERS

Hello Geek Show, and welcome once again! Today I’m looking at another recent re-release on Blu-Ray, but instead of an underappreciated historical gem or unearthed Japanese monster movies from the 50s, it’s a much more widely-known film, generally accepted to be a classic. It’s Quentin Tarantino’s first feature film, Reservoir Dogs.

Despite seeing many scenes from his other films such as his magnum opus Pulp Fiction and his more recent work such as Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, this is the first film of Tarantino’s that I have watched from start to finish. Let’s just say that it’s easily one of the best first impressions a film director has ever made on the world of cinema, as Reservoir Dogs is absolutely fantastic.

The film follows a large group of gangsters, all working under colour-themed codenames, who we see coping with the aftermath of a diamond heist gone wrong. Although much of the film is concentrated in a warehouse where the surviving members hide from the police, we also have frequent flashbacks and cutaways to flesh out some of the more important players in the game, which include Steve Buscemi’s Mr Pink, Mr Orange played by Tim Roth and the particularly savage Mr Blonde played by Michael Madsen.

Reservoir Dogs has a lot on its mind and a lot that it’s trying to do, and even at a pretty tight runtime of 95 minutes, we get to know all of the key players involved in the heist. Even though a few of them are dead by the time the opening credits are done, each character gets a memorable line or a special attribute that makes them distinct.

The first scene in the diner especially is masterful, with Mr Brown (played by Tarantino himself) deeply analysing the Madonna hit, Like A Virgin, and the other gangsters arguing against Mr Pink’s refusal to tip the waitress who served them. This dialogue doesn’t give us much indication of the plot or what these characters are up to, but it’s perfect in setting a tone. In less than ten minutes, we get everything we need to know – these characters are misogynistic unlikable scum, but effortless gangsters on top of that, and Tarantino succeeds in making them look as cool as possible when they walk in unison while Little Green Bag plays over the titles.

This effortless establishing of our central characters also serves to make sure that the film isn’t bogged down later on, as we expect to see more about the machinations of the heist and the various crimes that this team get up to. A justified choice as the need to both develop the story and give the characters more depth might clash otherwise. Instead, we never see the robbery, cutting straight to the catastrophic aftermath where Mr White is fleeing with a badly-wounded Mr Orange and the police are on their tail. 

Imagine the first scene in the diner being like episode 1 of a television series, getting to meet a wide array of characters and seeing them interact, and then immediately cutting to the penultimate episode where all their plans have gone to hell and they’re on the verge of killing each other. This is what the transition feels like at the start of Reservoir Dogs, and it really helps to give the film an unpredictable edge, you’re never quite sure of what truly happens in the heist after this moment. It’s here where we realise the film’s way of telling its story, a way that Tarantino later uses many times, especially in Pulp Fiction – telling it in the completely wrong order yet somehow making sense and being easy to follow.

While Mr Pink and Mr White argue about whether to get medical attention for the dying Orange, we get cutaways back to the heist as Pink runs down a street, and we also get extensive flashbacks to Joe, the boss of the mission, running them through the expectations and telling them their codenames. 

We’d all be lying if we said this was a unique and pioneering style of storytelling that Tarantino made up himself as many films before had used these techniques. One that sprung to mind is the iconic Citizen Kane, where the modern-day investigation into Kane’s last words are interspersed with flashbacks to events in his life. However, the way that Tarantino uses it here not only serves to keep the film’s momentum going, but it really helps you understand the world that the ensemble inhabits, and how a group of people who are basically strangers ended up working together on such a dangerous job.  

As someone who hasn’t seen much Tarantino but does know a lot about him, it’s also clear watching this just how quickly he establishes his own style. Inspired by a lot of European cinema and crime B-movies, Tarantino has admitted that much of the film’s ideas were ‘borrowed’ from other films, the biggest of them being the film The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three where the main characters are known by colour-themed aliases. Sound familiar? Despite the borderline plagiarism though, this feels so distinctive to Tarantino – every bit of dialogue feels really fluid and snappy and just exudes charisma thanks to the cast. Every character introduction leaves an impression on the audience. 

The music is evocative too. The two most well-known songs used in the film are Little Green Bag and Stealer’s Wheel’s Stuck In The Middle With You, the latter of which is used in a scene that I won’t be forgetting in a hurry. While they don’t serve much of a purpose in regards to plot, they do serve to establish the film’s effortlessly cool and dangerous style and give what could be a run-of-the-mill heist story a special touch that can be attributed to Tarantino. 

Finally, I think I want to discuss the surprising amount of emotion that the film explores. For what is quite a fast-paced film, a lot of that briskness comes from the present danger and stakes of Harvey Keitel’s Mr White escaping the heist and helping an injured Orange, who is terrified of death and pleading for help. Considering this is immediately after the opening diner conversation, seeing the group go from swaggering criminals to desperate human men almost instantaneously is riveting to watch, and a young Tim Roth is superb as Orange, who it turns out is arguably the film’s most pivotal character, being an undercover cop who was in on the situation and alerted the police.

The flashbacks involving Mr Orange are probably the most disconnected we get from the overall premise, but they are still very witty and entertaining as we see Orange slowly immersing himself in this criminal world, only we as the audience know he’s actually working against them. And when he finally reveals this to Mr White it’s a really cathartic and spine-tingling moment. Harvey Keitel plays this brilliantly too, as the final shot of the film is a close-up of him looking utterly devastated, realising this entire mission was for nothing. For all of the witty back-and-forths and heist trappings, we only realise at the end that the main crux of the film is one criminal trying to save a man who was secretly against him the entire time. It’s quite a powerful and poignant ending.

Reservoir Dogs can’t be summed up in any other way other than saying it’s phenomenal. While it’s not the most original story in the world, Tarantino takes these ideas and films that have inspired him and stamps his own unique vision on them, with a script that’s bubbling with wit and unpredictability and a cast that brings the story to life in a really spectacular way. 

Reservoir Dogs is an amazing introduction to Tarantino’s filmography and one of the best debut films I’ve ever seen.

RESERVOIR DOGS

Thanks once again for reading, I really do appreciate that you’re interested in hearing the thoughts of some random 17-year old and though I normally don’t mention that I want you to know that your attention doesn’t go unnoticed. I’ll have a review of the recent film Fall coming your way very very soon, and I’ve also got one more surprise coming up at Christmas to round off what’s been a great year for me on Geek Show.