Are you gonna bark all day little doggie, or are you gonna bite?
A long, long time ago, (1992 to be exact), a magical man names Quentin Tarantino made his debut as a director with the classically smooth and violent masterpiece Reservoir Dogs.
Reservoir Dogs follows Joe Cabot’s gang (Lawrence Tierney) and their bank heist mission. The only problem is this mission goes wrong… terribly, terribly wrong. With one member dead, and another missing, the surviving members Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), and Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) are hiding in a warehouse until they figure out what to do. Tarantino plays Mr. Brown, one of two men that don’t make it back to the warehouse. Tension builds and emotions begin to escalate as Mr. White shows up with a little something in his trunk. Add Mr. White and Mr. Pink discussing that a traitor might be among them, (because of how fast the police showed up at the robbery scene) and you have one hell of a movie!
Talk about hitting the casting jackpot with his directorial debut! Tarantino could not have done a better job with the casting job on this one! Keitel, Buscemi, Roth, Madsen… they all fit their parts to a tee. Tarantino digs deep into the character development, not only giving them each a well rounded, unique personality, but also giving them all a kind of humanity to show that they are not just criminals, but multi dimensional. He also does a great job of keeping the plot interesting. With all of the twists and turns involved, it’s hard to predict how any of it is going to end. Tarantino has said that he was really inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing to make this film, and you can kind of tell with the crazy, twisty plot!
The film is testosterone driven, with violence, vulgar language, and bad guys doing bad guy stuff, yet is written in such a witty way that it easily appeals to more than just the rock eating meat head. Heck, this chick loves it! Even the violence! Some argue that the violence in this movie was completely pointless. I disagree. I feel that it really helped with the character development. The language in this film is great! Every character, no matter how gangster or ignorant, speak in an eloquent fashion filled with pop culture. People generally don’t talk that way, which makes it even more entertaining to watch.
The movie has become a cult classic. It’s hard to believe that Tarantino was working as a video store clerk when him and his friends were going to take on this movie with a mere $30,000 budget. Just like magic, Harvey Keitel became involved, agreeing to act in it and co-produce, and they were able to get $1.5 million to make this film. The film opened in 19 theaters across the United States, taking in $147, 839 in the first week and $2,832,029 total during its box office run in the states.
Needless to say, the success of Reservoir Dogs skyrocketed Tarantino’s career. If it weren’t for the success of this film, we would have missed out on a slew of great films. So let’s kick off Quentin Tarantino week right and give this man, and this movie some praise for entertaining us and blowing out movie loving minds!
Cheers Mr. Tarantino!
