Movies on DVD: Reservoir Dogs

The first written/directed by Quentin Tarantino venture, and probably the second best, stands out as far as crime movies go, mainly for a few highly notable scenes (the walk out of the diner, the ear, the mexican standoff). Overall though, this is one of those dialogue heavy Tarantino films (see: Jackie Brown, Grindhouse), and thus probably not for everybody; however, I find the dialogue in this to be far superior to the other two films. Performances are top notch here as well, Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel have a palpable on-screen chemestry as Mr. Orange and Mr. White respectively. For the most part, all the actors perform well, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi and even Chris Penn all have good turns in their roles. The structure and setting of the story belie Tarantino’s original intentions for this film, as he was going to make it on a $30,000 budget with his friends, when he managed to actually acquire other backing and thus a much larger budget, and so he didn’t have to put up his paycheck from selling True Romance. So, armed with a much larger budget and better actors than he ever good have anticipated, it’s no wonder Tarantino puts forth such a magnificent effort and provides such a quality film. Perhaps my slight bias towards Reservoir Dogs comes from having seen Pulp Fiction (easily a superior movie) first, and thus I can’t help judging by comparison.

My IMDB Rating: 8 Stars