Movie #1 of 100: "Reservoir Dogs"

Movie 1/100: “Reservoir Dogs”

Seen: 1/4/19

Overall Thoughts:

Having never seen this movie before, I went into it expecting the standard fare for a Tarantino flick: tons of violence, cursing, and strong dialogue.

I ended up getting those things and then some. The violence never had a particularly funny edge to it, as violence is wont to do with the amount of brutality that was on display in this film, and several scenes, including the one with Michael Madsen torturing a police officer, were definitely hard to watch.

Interspersed with those types of scenes were great narrative bits of the film, including a great scene with Tim Roth in which he explains his backstory through a series of flashbacks. That flashback theme was used to great effect in terms of humanizing these men who were almost sub-human in their approach to the job at hand, and I very much appreciated that.

Obviously I have plenty of opinions on how the movie ended, but I think it went roughly in the direction that it needed to. It didn’t pull any punches in the final minutes, and the emotional and physical elements of the final moments were breathtaking.

Favorite Performance:

It’s easy to go with Madsen since he was so horrifically, and gleefully, brutal, in his scenes, but I’m leaning more toward Steve Buscemi and Tim Roth. Buscemi was fantastic in several scenes, including the opening one in a diner where he rails against the practice of tipping, and in scenes where he was interacting with Harvey Keitel, who has been thus far unmentioned but definitely was great in his role as Mr. White.

Favorite Scene:

Madsen’s sadistic thrill in the torture scene definitely made the podium for me in terms of favorite scene, and the ending was fantastic as well, but I’m going to stick with the scene where Mr. Orange, played by Roth, is lying bleeding in Mr. White’s arms. The sheer horror of knowing that death is a very real possibility was portrayed both on Roth’s face and in his words, and Keitel’s attempts at both comforting him, and in being logical with him about his predicament, were all incredibly well executed and directed by the actors and Tarantino.

Stars: 4 of 5