Film Review: Reservoir Dogs

The fifth film we watched from the ‘The Cutting Edge’ film programme was Reservoir Dogs, which was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was released in 1992.


Reservoir Dogs is a film about a jewellery heist gone wrong when cops show up 'out of the blue' to apprehend the thieves, leaving a bloody and violent scene as the criminals make a break for a pre-organised safe house. Wally Hammond writing for TimeOut describes the film as:


"Tarantino's powerful homage/reworking of the heist-gone-wrong thriller..." 


One rather interesting point to note about the film is that the criminals all receive agent like names being dubbed Mr. White, Orange, Pink, Blonde, Brown and Blue. In Vincent Canby's 1992 review for The New York Times he writes:



"One of the elements of old Joe's plan was the anonymity of the men he hired for the job, to protect them from one another and from the police. To this end he gave them noms de crime (Mr. White, Mr. Pink, Mr. Orange and so on)..."


The point of this was to keep their identities a secret so if anyone was caught they would know nothing about the others. This however, ultimately led to the downfall of everyone involved, either by killing each other due to trust issues or in Brown and Blue's cases being shot by the police. What was to be used to protect ended up being you against on another.


Due to the non-linear narrative of this film the story jumps from the main body of the film - the aftermath of the heist - and the character directed back-stories that leads up to the heist. This not only provides further evidence of the heist that isn't witnessed but also gives insight into the characters themselves particularly with Mr. Blonde and Mr. Orange. Almar Haflidason writes for the BBC:


"The film essentially revolves around a robbery that has gone wrong. Abandoning the conventional format of natural chronological storytelling, Tarantino creates a tapestry of flashbacks that cleverly build to a conclusion. This allows separate scenes to be showcased as individual vignettes that the cast exploit to the full."




Bibliography


Hammond, Wally (-) Reservoir Dogs.
At: http://www.timeout.com/film/reviews/76614/reservoir_dogs.html (Accessed on 16.02.11)

Canby, Vincent (1992) Reservoir Dogs.

At: http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9E0CE6DD113EF930A15753C1A964958260&partner=Rotten%20Tomatoes (Accessed on 16.02.11)

Haflidason, Almar (2000) Reservoir Dogs.

At: http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2000/11/21/reservoir_dogs_1992_review.shtml(Accessed on 16.02.11)