"If you wanna know something and he won't tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him his thumb's next. After that he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear. I'm hungry. Let's get a taco." -- Harvey Keitel
Reservoir Dogs has the fluidic diction of the great American stage plays but the gritty characters from the best of the gangster movies. Granted, the dubious skeptic must necessarily overlook writer/director Quentin Tarantino's frequent urge to make every character say quirky things just for the sake of being quirky, however even with this love-it-or-leave-it trademark out of the way, the result is still an entertaining and kinetic piece of filmmaking.
Timewise, the story bounces forward and backward, but the breaks are easily identifiable because the scenes "in the present" take place in an abandoned warehouse. The warehouse is an agreed-upon meeting place for a gang of robbers after their attempted heist on a jewelry store goes wrong. In the movie's opening scene, it seems at first that the men know each other, but we soon find out that the boss of the operation, Joe Cabot (the bulldog-like Lawrence Tierney), has managed to assemble his posse under the condition of anonymity. All of the recruits are labelled by colour: there's the fiesty Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), the brooding Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), the psychotic Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), and Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), who has the dubious distinction of having to bleed profusely throughout the whole movie. Chris Penn plays Joe's son Eddie, and Kirk Baltz is aptly pitiful as Marvin Nash, a police officer who ends up at the warehouse in an unexpected way.
Other than one key moment after the heist, there are no women in the film. And, for all the dramatic intensity caused by the blood, tension, and cursing, the robbery itself is never actually shown. As Tarantino's directorial debut, this would also be our first introduction to his curious selection of soundtrack music. Vintage tracks such as "Little Green Bag", "Coconut" and "I Gotcha" are oddly appropriate, and, after a harrowing sequence midway through the picture, few will listen to Stealer's Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle With You" the same way again. Listen closely for funny man Steven Wright as the background radio disc jockey.
If Reservoir Dogs has one overriding strength though, it is in its attention to details via the language the characters use. Mr. Orange has a segment where he must have a "story" memorized, and, as an actor, Tim Roth delivers the monologue with ease and marvellous timing. Tarantino fashions a screenplay that allows each of the performers to have a moment to stand out and all are well cast and well suited to their parts. While, naturally, there are visible leaks that come with working under the confines of a low budget, the movie has nevertheless become an underground fan favourite over the years. And it's almost impossible not to rewind back to that infamous Mexican standoff scene to try to figure everything out.
