90s Movie Review - Reservoir Dogs

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Genre: Drama/ Crime/ Thriller
Runtime: 99 minutes
Year: 1992
Starring: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Quentin Tarantino, Edward Bunker, Randy Brooks, Kirk Baltz, Michael Sotile, Steve Wright, Rich Turner, David Steen , Tony Cosmo, Stevo Polyi

Description: After a simple jewelery heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant.

Review: When George Baker first saw “Reservoir Dogs”, he thought that he was dealing with another B-movie that used his song. After watching it a few times, the Dutch singer realized that “Little Green Bag” was used for a masterpiece.
The jury at the Sundance film festival also ignored the movie. The wrong choice off course, because “Reservoir Dogs” grew out to become a classic and Quentin Tarantino’s style has been copied many times ever since.
In “Reservoir Dogs” we’re not dealing with a very original story: a jewelry heist gone wrong. But the way it’s told is extraordinary. The movie opens with a scene where the criminals are having lunch and discuss trivial topics like Madonna songs and waitresses. It looks like a meaningless conversation that doesn’t have anything to do with the plot.
It’s scenes like this that make “Reservoir Dogs” special. They tell us two important things. First it’s clear that criminals who don’t know each other and are very different from each other, have a certain connection. Second and maybe the most important one, Tarantino shows us that crooks are also just regular people talking about everyday things.
The fact that “Reservoir Dogs” is told in a non-linear way also adds an extra dimension. Tarantino turns a fairly simple plot into a puzzle. Two years later he would do the same with “Pulp Fiction”.
Despite the flashbacks, the movie has a high tempo, but it’s not an action film. Tarantino is a director that mainly focusses on the characters, what they think, what music they like, what they talk about. And the actors execute it well. Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, all great in their roles.
With “Reservoir Dogs” Tarantino introduces us to a new genre, that later became known as ‘nouvelle violence’. Because of this success, many directors tried to do the same. But no one managed to top Quentin Tarantino. “Reservoir Dogs” is one of my all-time favorites.

Rating: 5/ 5