Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Film Review

Reservoir Dogs marked what is arguably the most auspicious directorial debut of the 1990s, that of 29-year-old Quentin Tarantino.  Just before he made this film, Tarantino was a modest employee at a video rental store in Manhattan Beach.  Tarantino's dazzling reworking of the classic gangster heist movie made him one of the most talked about new filmmakers of the decade, particularly in the UK, where the film proved to be a surprising box office success.  The film also galvanised independent cinema, in both the United States and Britain, whilst ushering in a new era of more graphic violence as crime films became ever-more daring and realistic.  However, it wasn't until Tarantino made his next film, Pulp Fiction (1994), that he was widely recognised as probably the most important independent filmmaker of his generation.

By Hollywood standards, Reservoir Dogs is an incredibly modest production.  Made on a slim budget of 1.5 million dollars, most of the action is confined to one set (a warehouse that slowly turns into a charnel house), with the rest of the story comprising short flashbacks.  The heist itself was not filmed, although snatches of its bloody aftermath are included in the flashbacks.  Tarantino had originally intended to shoot the film with some friends on a budget of 30,000 dollars, but he raised his sights when the actor Harvey Keitel agreed to co-produce the film and play one of the main characters.  With a substantially bigger budget, Tarantino was able to assemble a stunning cast which included stars-in-the-making Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Steve Buscemi, although he stuck with the minimalist vision he had originally conceived - a one set drama with flashbacks.

What made Reservoir Dogs such an attention grabber when it was first released in 1992 was its perceived quantum leap in violence, exemplified by the now notorious sequence in which one of the hoodlums (Madsen) slices off a police man's ear and threatens to set light to him.  In fact, if you watch the film closely you will see that its actual on-screen violence is minimal.  The most shocking sequences (including the famous ear slicing scene) employ the old tried-and-tested technique of shock-by-suggestion rather than shock-by-showing.  Whereas today's wannabe Tarantinos are obsessed with putting everything on the screen (which they can now do thanks to recent advances in effects technology), Tarantino Mark I knew his art well enough to realise that showing less and allowing the spectator's imagination to fill in the grisly blanks is a far more effective way of shocking an audience - Hitchcock pulls the same stunt for his famous scene in Psycho. The genius of Reservoir Dogs is that it takes old-fashioned techniques and uses these, with inspired bravura, to deliver something that feels astonishingly fresh and outré. 

Given their thematic similarity and their shared dependency on graphic violence, it is natural to compare Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.  Both clearly owe much to the crime films of French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, not just in their deliberately disjointed composition but also in their interest in deconstructing the classic gangster movie.  Like Godard before him, Tarantino reminds us that violent crime is just one more facet of capitalism, one with just a little bit more bloodshed.  Yet, compared with the generally optimistic feel of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs is resolutely nihilistic.  In Pulp Fiction, the protagonists all have the possibility of escape from their underworld nightmare, and some of them even achieve it.  In Reservoir Dogs no one has the slightest hope of escaping - all of the characters are doomed, from the moment they first meet and start arguing over whether they should tip a waitress or not. 

Reservoir Dogs is a pretty good contender for the grimmest gangster movie ever made - not because it revels in extreme violence (which, incidentally, it doesn't), but because none of its gangster protagonists appears to be remotely interested in surviving.  They are literally dogs, thrashing about in a foaming cesspool, hell-bent on savaging each other to death.  The term 'organised crime' becomes a decidedly sick joke when the gangsters' inability to contain their mutual distrust and macho pride cause them to degenerate into a pack of rabid, snarling curs.  It may be stretching it somewhat to suggest that Tarantino intended his debut film to be a dark allegory on the failings of modern capitalism, but the connection is certainly there, should you choose to make it.

Film Synopsis

Eight men take breakfast together at a Los Angeles diner, their last meeting before they participate in a daylight jewel robbery.  The gang's leader, Joe Cabot, selected each of the other seven men, who must refer to each other by a colour-themed name and must not disclose any of their personal details to any other member of the gang.  The heist goes horribly awry - it is obvious that someone has tipped off the police.  One of the robbers, Mr Orange, takes a bullet in the stomach and is bleeding profusely as his comrade Mr White takes him to the gang's meeting place, a disused warehouse.  Mr Pink turns up a short time later, claiming he has hidden the loot, and immediately recriminations start flying.  Mr Blonde is next to arrive, and he attempts to extract the identity of the treacherous gang member by torturing a police officer he has taken captive.  Realising the cop knows nothing, Mr Blonde decides to have some fun by setting fire to him.  When the other gang members show up, they find Mr Blonde dead.  The fireworks party has only just begun...