Film review by Kevin Patterson
Reservoir Dogs * * * (out of four) R, 1992 Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi.
Pretty much everyone knows the story about how former video store clerk Quentin Tarantino made his 1994 film, "Pulp Fiction," on a small budget and how the film went on to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes and become one of the most successful independent films in recent history. Tarantino's 1992 directorial debut, "Reservoir Dogs," was largely ignored when it was first released, however. In retrospect, "Dogs" showed traces of the stylistic quirkiness that dominated "Pulp Fiction," but it also boasts a well-conceived gangster story.
"Reservoir Dogs" revolves around a bank robbery gone wrong, but we never see the robbery itself. Instead, the film flashes forward to immediately after the robbery as three of the thieves gather at their warehouse hideout. One of them is seriously wounded and doesn't seem likely to last much longer, and as the others straggle in, they all become pretty certain that there was an undercover cop in their ranks. What is most interesting is the characterizations of these criminals: rather than being the generic heartless thugs that we have come to expect from crime movies, these men seem to have their own, albeit warped, sense of ethics. Two of them, for example, have a debate on whether or not to take their wounded colleague to the hospital, and all of them seem thoroughly disgusted with another fellow thief who lost his head during the robbery and started shooting innocent bystanders.
Tarantino makes a smart move in humanizing otherwise unsavory characters, because what happens next lends to the film a sense of genuine tragedy. Everyone agrees that someone must be a cop, but no one knows who it is. The criminals gradually turn against each other: some of them do so out of self-defense, and some of them are standing up for each other. The suspicions and misunderstandings escalate until all of them are heading towards an inevitable but senseless bloody confrontation.
Unfortunately, Tarantino's shtick sometimes gets in the way. "Reservoir Dogs" has his signature quirky dialogue, funky music, and non-linear structure (about half of the movie is devoted to flashbacks of the escape from the botched robbery and of the initial assembly of the group of criminals). Unlike "Pulp Fiction," however, which was a study in surreal and sometimes darkly humorous exaggeration, this film doesn't really seem to need it. The opening scene in which the criminals debate the meanings of Madonna's lyrics, for example, is funny and would have been fine in a Richard Linklater movie, but here it just seems like a waste of time. Also, the behavior of the character who turns out to be the undercover cop borders on downright inexplicable at times. Some viewers have claimed that Tarantino was exploring themes of loyalty through this character, but if so, then there is almost no build-up, because all I saw was that he shot somebody when it didn't make any sense for him to do so.
I do not deny the signs of sophistication that have propelled Tarantino to the spotlight: at his best, he is a smart action/crime-movie director with a flair for character development. What I also see, however, is a director who seems to want some sort of insurance that his films will become cult hits, and as a result injects a lot of well written but unnecessary "offbeat" material into a film that would have been perfectly successful without it. "Pulp Fiction" took the over-the-top aspect of "Reservoir Dogs" and ran with it for a whole movie, and, from the rumors so far, so does Tarantino's upcoming "Jackie Brown." Hopefully, when it comes time for his next project, he'll be able to settle down enough to write the gritty four-star crime drama of which he is clearly capable.
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