Reservoir Dogs: A Quick Review

It's no secret that I personally detest Quentin Tarantino. Not that I am an expert or anything (which I certainly am not) but the man thinks that he is God's gift to directing. Nothing makes me want to vomit more than a director that is so full of himself that it bleeds through every scene. Of which there is only about five scenes in any given movie of his. Granted, now I've only seen two of his films. Kill Bill Vol.1 made me want to vomit all over the place. I was so bored that I was hoping Uma Thurman would die. I will never see Kill Bill Vol. 2 willingly. The other film of Tarantino's I saw was Inglourious Basterds. The twice spelled wrong history screwing 4-scene epic was only carried by the talent of it's two incredible leads, Brad Pitt and Christoph Waltz. Everyone who lists Basterds as their favorite film should be lined up against the wall, and given a stern talking to. With all that said, crazy ranting aside about how much I hate Tarantino, Reservoir Dogs is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

The subject is simple: multiple "professionals" are hired by a mob boss to hit a jewelry store that is carrying very valuable rough-cut diamonds for one day only. All of the men are given fake names: Mr. brown, blue, pink, blonde, orange and white. The jewelry heist goes awry, Mr. blue and brown are killed by the cops. The rest make it back to the rendezvous point. But Mr. Orange is suffering from a gunshot wound and Mr. Pink is convinced that the police had an informant in the group resulting in the botched robbery. The plot is further thickened when Mr. Blonde reveals that he has taken a cop hostage. The men argue with each other in the small space trying to find out who sold them out to the police.

The film is superbly acted, many of the faces are recognizable but the only real name in the film is Steve Buscemi. The constant sense of claustrophobia, the whodunnit atmosphere and the incredible pacing result in an absolutely fantastic crime film. Which I hate to say because it is a Tarantino film. I'm not giving him complete credit because Reservoir Dogs borrows very heavily from the Chinese film City on Fire, but this is a fantastic directorial debut and any student of film should be happy to have it on their shelf. Go see it, I'm serious.

4 out of 4 stars

-Christopher O'Connell