Reservoir DogsEverybody's got a different story, and not all of them can be the truth. Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut--Reservoir Dogs--is the tale of a jewelry store heist gone wrong...but we know that pretty early in. What we don't know is why, and really, we never really get a definite here. Our story is chopped into pieces, like a severed ear, reattached in an altered perspective, like Picasso. And like the cubist works of Picasso, perspective is everything, and seeing one person's point of view doesn't necessarily make it so. You can't force homogeneity on a group of people, even if you do dress them up in identical uniforms, and you can't take trust for granted, especially among thieves.
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Our first introduction to our ensemble crew is over breakfast at a greasy spoon, over some small talk and humorous aphorisms about Madonna songs and tipping. These guys might be a group of buds getting together on a Sunday morning, hanging out and shooting the breeze, coworkers, college chums, and so on. Our first real clue that they are not just amigos from way back is when the (later named) "Mr. Orange" (Tim Roth) discloses that "Mr. Pink" (Steve Buscemi) didn't tip that we realize that these guys are using aliases. Why? Well, they're crooks...at least most of them are; one's a rat, and the big question is "who". There's a lot that gets disclosed in those first several minutes, principally that these guys don't know each other well enough to call each other by their Christian names, because no one else is in earshot for them to bother with the aliases. So what has a bunch of guys who don't know one from another working a dangerous armed robbery? The head of the job--"The Thing"-looking Joe (Lawrence Tierney)--thought it might be advantageous to get a group of thugs together to pull the job, rather than people who are already tight. Why on earth would that seem like a good idea? Well, less chance of the group getting the idea of running off with the loot themselves, and so on, maybe. Basically, Joe's probably thinking that by contracting the job out like it was a franchise, he would stand to make more loot. Problem is, when things go south after the heist, no one really knows one another, so everyone distrusts one another--that's the problem. Other guys like "Mr. White" (Harvey Keitel) go so far as to disclose his first name to Mr. Orange after he takes a bullet in the stomach, trying to calm him down, because it's the natural thing to do. We all hear Mr. White and Mr. Pink's respective stories about the heist and how it went bad--Mr. Blonde/Vic Vega (Michael Madsen) apparently "went crazy" after someone tripped the alarm, and started executing people. If two people confirmed it, it's probably true; but Mr. Blonde plays it as cool as a cucumber, so even here, we begin to suspect just who is wrong, who's lying. Like Mr. Brown (the director himself, Q.T.) relates in his opening monologue about the song "Like A Virgin", everybody's got a different perspective, and their own unique interpretation of the facts as they see it. The rat hinges on this, and banks that this will keep him safe. And like the "commode" story, the story is "about you, and how you perceived the events that went down".
Interestingly enough, Reservoir Dogs is a film that is part of a "shared universe", a concept which has grown in popularity in light of the popularity of comic book movies. Mr. Orange appears to be something of a closet comic nerd, with vintage comic cover prints in his apartment, making analogous remarks about Joe to the Fantastic Four. This idea of a connected world comes up at a couple of points, like when Mr. White comments to Joe about a former partner--Alabama "Bama" Whitman, of True Romance--and, looking ahead a bit here, Mr. Blonde's real name is Vic Vega, who is supposed to be the brother of John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega. So why the idea of a connected universe? Well, why not? We all live in a world with other people, and we all have our unique stories to tell, just as the characters in Reservoir Dogs do. The film foreshadows a consistent trend in Tarantino's work, that of perspective and point of view being crucial to the way that we experience a story. Especially so in Reservoir Dogs, the idea that a story can be remembered differently by the characters instills in the audience an intrinsic sense of distrust, even if we don't know where to lay that distrust, because we have to want to believe that someone is right and someone is wrong. We're uncomfortable not knowing, because cinema generally takes it for granted that what we see is what we get, and that violating that creed is a breach of trust. So, in this film, rife with deception, the idea of "lying to the audience" seems to be the natural progression. The broken up narrative and title cards announcing a unique point of view for select characters underscores this muddying of the waters. Characters tell stories in lieu of being able to relate personal information about themselves, like about vengeful girlfriends, or drug deals, and the like. What better feeding ground for a rat than one where no one can dispute the validity of the story? A good rat's best skill is to lie.
Recommended for: Fans of caper films full of red herrings and deception, misinformation and twists. The film--like much of Tarantino's work--pays homage to films of yesteryear, such as those '70s bank job films, and the soundtrack confirms it; you'll never hear Stealers Wheel the same way again.
Interestingly enough, Reservoir Dogs is a film that is part of a "shared universe", a concept which has grown in popularity in light of the popularity of comic book movies. Mr. Orange appears to be something of a closet comic nerd, with vintage comic cover prints in his apartment, making analogous remarks about Joe to the Fantastic Four. This idea of a connected world comes up at a couple of points, like when Mr. White comments to Joe about a former partner--Alabama "Bama" Whitman, of True Romance--and, looking ahead a bit here, Mr. Blonde's real name is Vic Vega, who is supposed to be the brother of John Travolta's character in Pulp Fiction, Vincent Vega. So why the idea of a connected universe? Well, why not? We all live in a world with other people, and we all have our unique stories to tell, just as the characters in Reservoir Dogs do. The film foreshadows a consistent trend in Tarantino's work, that of perspective and point of view being crucial to the way that we experience a story. Especially so in Reservoir Dogs, the idea that a story can be remembered differently by the characters instills in the audience an intrinsic sense of distrust, even if we don't know where to lay that distrust, because we have to want to believe that someone is right and someone is wrong. We're uncomfortable not knowing, because cinema generally takes it for granted that what we see is what we get, and that violating that creed is a breach of trust. So, in this film, rife with deception, the idea of "lying to the audience" seems to be the natural progression. The broken up narrative and title cards announcing a unique point of view for select characters underscores this muddying of the waters. Characters tell stories in lieu of being able to relate personal information about themselves, like about vengeful girlfriends, or drug deals, and the like. What better feeding ground for a rat than one where no one can dispute the validity of the story? A good rat's best skill is to lie.
Recommended for: Fans of caper films full of red herrings and deception, misinformation and twists. The film--like much of Tarantino's work--pays homage to films of yesteryear, such as those '70s bank job films, and the soundtrack confirms it; you'll never hear Stealers Wheel the same way again.