Movie Review : Reservoir Dogs (1992)

I was maybe nineteen, twenty years old. There was alcohol involved and a lot of people in the room. The memories I kept from my viewing were positive, but blurried. After discussing the movie last Friday with my buddy Eddie Hererra and realizing I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about, I decided to give another shot to Quentin Tarantino's big screen debut. I remembered it was very good, but I didn't remember is was THAT good. Tarantino is a director with who I have a serious case of love/hate relationship. I loved Pulp Fiction, meh'd at Kill Bill, disliked Jackie Brown and thought Inglorious Basterds was very good, despite being self-indulgent.

Reservoir Dogs might just be the very best thing he's ever given to cinema, no matter what the box-office will say.

In good Tarentino fashion, Reservoir Dogs defies everything you know about structure. It's like a post-mosterm to a botched heist movie. Six robbers, who know each other as Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) , Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Orange (Eli Roth) and Mr. Blue (Edward Bunker) are hired by mobster Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and his son Eddie (Sean Penn) to do a job in a jewelry store. Only problem is that they got set up by an insider and that the robbery went extremely wrong. They got the package but Mr. Blue and Mr. Brown are dead and Mr. Orange is bleeding out from a serious gut shot. The survivors reach a safe house, an empty warehouse that seem to belong to Joe Cabot, and they try to figure out where they went wrong.

Since most of the movie happens inside the warehouse, some of the scenes are like a glorified stage play and rely on dialog and actors to carry the weight of the story. And it was a safe bet by Tarantino, because everybody owns. Or almost everybody. Harvey Keitel does Mr. White, the old-timer with values, with great energy and selflessness and Steve Buscemi completely owns the screen as Mr. Pink, the ego-centric survivalist. It's one of Buscemi's comfort zones, but he's so good at it that it's hard to give him any grievance to do what he does best. My favorite performence though is from Michael Madsen as the brutal and soulless Vic Vega, who makes his brother Vincent (from Pulp Fiction, remember him?) look like a fun loving teddy bear. Playing violence is easy, but playing soulless, psychopathic violence is another thing. Michael Madsen never shined brighter.

There are lower moments, almost all related to the acting. Chris Penn is playing a cliché mobster with a track suit and too much jewelry. Until he gets serious (about three minutes from the end of the movie), he's just one big walking farce*. Tim Roth is also not giving a weak performence per se, but he's a bit bland. His character has no edge, except when he's bleeding out. Considering he gets a good deal of backstory scenes, he ends up slowing things down when it's his turn on screen.

Reservoir Dogs is a movie that relies on acting so much that delivering an average performence just doesn't cut it. Tim Roth is better than what he shows in Mr. Orange (pre-bleeding that is). But it's minor. Keitel, Buscemi, Madsen and Tarantino's dark and humorous writing are all at their best and easily carry this movie through its short lulls. A great gangster movie that represent very well the essence of what crime is. Mindless destruction in the name of distant dreams of fortune.

SCORE: 93%

*For the wrestling afficionados, not how he scores a clean double leg takedown to Michael Madsen when they play fight at the beginning.