Quentin Tarantino's first directorial effort is a fairly basic premise - a diamond heist gone wrong gets sorted out by the surviving members as they try to uncover out who's responsible for their unraveling. It's nothing earth shattering by any means but it's the way that Tarantino tells the story that makes it a classic. The non-sequential plot structure, the phenomenal 1970's pop soundtrack and the unmatched level of slick dialogue sets the template for what's to be expected from the master filmmaker going forward as he bursts out of the gate with an incredible debut.
From the second the film starts with it's diatribes on Madonna's "Like a Virgin" (delivered by QT himself) and Steve Buscemi's Mr.Pink explaining his beliefs on tipping, Tarantino delivers some of his most memorable bits of his career and establishes his unmistakable voice with an imprint that still resonates in Hollywood today. Tarantino doesn't set out to reinvent the medium, he just fills it to the absolute brim with the best of everything you want to see in a movie. The incredible attention to detail is what helps everything feel so authentic. Like Tim Roth's rehearsed drug sniffing dog anecdote, it's all of the little details in Tarantino's script that inevitably get their hooks into you until you're completely immersed in the world that he's built.
And the cast is the perfect ensemble to bring his script to life. Harvey Keitel and Tim Roth deliver career best performances as the bromance at the center of the story, while Steve Buscemi jumps off the screen in his breakout role as the skeptical Mr.Pink. Roth's agony on the car ride to the warehouse is so visceral that you can't help but see him as anything but the victim. You immediately understand why Harvey Keitel is doing everything he can to help him. But then you have Buscemi questioning everything and everyone upon his arrival to the aftermath with his distrust being ultimately what lets him walk away in the end as the lone survivor.
Oh and then there's Michael Madsen's iconic turn as the masochistic Mr.Blonde, who ratchets up the tension to a fever pitch during his infamous rendition of "Stuck in the Middle" as he carves up a helpless police officer. It's as if Tarantino himself is Mr.Blonde, celebrating your anguish with great relish as the you, the audience, is duct taped to its seat being tortured with the anticipation of how far this sick bastard will actually go. The violence on screen isn't anything all that shocking really, it's the way Tarantino slowly intensifies all of the mounting anticipation by following Mr.Blonde back outside to his car in one long tracking shot, making the audience wait to see what this maniac will finally do when he's fully left to his own devices. It's finally when the tension is at it's absolute zenith that Tarantino reveals the films biggest secret as the rat outs himself in a massively heroic gesture.
With the confined setting and small cast, the film feels incredibly personal, almost like a stage production. And yet in the midst of an era with composers like Danny Elfman and John Williams making their settings feel larger than life, Tarantino opts for a soundtrack composed entirely of 70's pop tracks that grounds the story in a much more realistic atmosphere. Especially in the scenes where our ramblers are fleeing police and encountering civilians, the lack of a score undermining the severity of gun shots and pedestrian screams make it all so much more genuine and impactful. More raw. More real.
The film is so full of gritty personality that despite it's slow burn template, you can't help but be drawn back time and time again. Even when the suspense is gone and you already know how the chips will fall; the mystery unravels so beautifully and with such rich characters that you can't wait to do it all over again. Reservoir Dogs is an exhilarating resume of everything Tarantino is capable of even on the smallest of scales. It's a Scorsesian game of Clue wrapped in a brutal 1970's heist homage - complete with the color coded aliases and a firm reminder that your trust should be the most valuable commodity anyone can earn.
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