on the basis of this film alone , i never would have predicted that , in two years , quentin tarantino would become the country’s biggest hotshot director .
reservoir dogs has hints of the tarantino brilliance that emerged in pulp fiction , but is a much less substantive , more conventional crime story than the big pf .
here’s what the two movies do have in common . . .
–scenes of intelligent , amusing dialogue with no relevance to the plot –a story that jumps back and forth in time rather than going in a logical , chronological sequence –graphic yet necessary violence –an engaging crime story –dialogue liberally spiced with swear words and racial/gender slurs –three of the same actors ( harvey keitel , tim roth and steve buscemi ) –a mexican standoff ending , although this one is considerably less optimistic than pf
reservoir dogs is an entire hour shorter than pulp fiction because it’s only got one story to tell rather than three .
crime lord joe cabot ( veteran actor lawrence tierney ) has assembled five criminals who have never even met each other to pull a diamond store heist .
the five are instructed not to reveal their real names or personal details or anything the cops could use if one of them was captured and interrogated .
instead , they are all given code names off the color chart — mr . white ( keitel ) , mr . pink ( buscemi ) , mr . orange ( roth ) , mr . blonde ( michael madsen ) , mr . brown ( tarantino ) and mr . peach ( tarantino’s chin ) .
most of the movie’s running time is spent with mr . white and pink waiting at a warehouse for the others to arrive .
mr . orange , meanwhile , is on the floor , dying from a gunshot wound .
the police had arrived at the scene of the crime way too soon , leading white to believe one of the five was an informant .
the story’s background unfolds through a series of flashbacks , of the crime itself and the meetings between joe and the criminals prior to the crime .
eventually , blonde arrives with a police officer hostage , and what follows is a truly brutal , uncomfortable torture scene .
let’s just say picasso would be inspired by what blonde does to the cop’s ear .
a lot of the time , reservoir dogs seems like your typical gangster heist-gone-wrong movie , but there are a few sequences that are uniquely tarantino .
the opening scene in the coffee shop starts the movie off on a high note the rest of it doesn’t live up to , as the criminals plus joe have a conversation on , among other things , tipping philosophies and their interpretations of madonna’s ” like a virgin . ”
another scene involves roth’s lengthy manufactured story about running into a group of cops and a police dog in a bus station bathroom while carrying a giant bag of marijuana .
neither of these have much plot relevance but are given ample time to develop , like the captain koons gold watch speech in pulp fiction , only here these sequences are more enjoyable than the rest of the movie .
reservoir dogs is good but it’s no pulp fiction .