|
|
Production house: Dog Eat Dog
Productions / Live Entertainment
Production year: 1992
Produced by: Lawrence Bender
Written by: Quentin Tarantino (also background radio dialogue)
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Cast:
Harvey Keitel...Mr.
White/Larry
Tim Roth ...Mr.
Orange/Freddy
Michael Madsen ...Mr.
Blonde/Vic Vega
Chris Penn ...Nice Guy
Eddie
Steve Buscemi ...Mr.
Pink
Lawrence Tierney ...Joe
Cabot
Edward Bunker ...Mr.
Blue/Eddie Bunker
Quentin Tarantino
...Mr. Brown
Lawrence Bender ...Young Cop (also Voice for Background Radio
Play)
Linda Kaye ...Shocked Woman
Steven Wright ...K-Billy DJ (voice)
Reservoir Dogs has a simple plot. A gang of criminals are planning a diamond store heist. Planted among them is a police officer who notifies his colleagues about the gangsters' plans. When the criminals try to rob the store, there's a gunfight in which some of gangsters die and the cop is wounded. The survivors of the gunfight rendezvous in an abandoned warehouse, and accuse each other of being the plant. Mr. Blonde has got his hands on a young cop who he tortures, first to get information, then just for fun! The conversations in the warehouse make up most of this movie. Mr. White who is protecting Mr. Orange throughout the movie, feeling that it`s him to blame for mr. Orange`s deadly wound, sacrifices everything to save mr. Orange and breaks down in the end when the true identity of his bleeding colleague is reviled.
Needless to say, Reservoir Dogs also has an extremely low budget settings. Most of the action takes place in the warehouse. In heavy contrast, a bit of it takes place on a terrace on a bright and sunny day. In a lesser degree of contrast, some of it takes place in restaurants and bars. Quentin Tarantino, famous messing around the chronological order of a movie, switches between these spots as he goes through the rather simple plot. The result is extremely effective: the violence, which has become routine in movies these days, is terrifying.
In retrospect, Tarantino's first film remains his most effective one. While Pulp Fiction was excellent, it was too long which resulted in certain parts having a bit of monotony (Reservoir Dogs is almost half the length of Pulp Fiction). In Pulp Fiction, the characters showed signs of emotion. Here, the characters are all bleak, just like their surroundings. There is a slightly greater amount of violence, but the emotionlessness of the gangsters is what makes this movie so powerful. That people can kill so casually, without feelings, is frightening, and the cinematography in this movie brings that aspect out brilliantly.
Back to The Quentin Tarantino Project (Hit Image)
