'Reservoir Dogs' - Film review

Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut in 1992, and I'm basically watching it because I'm going to see The Hateful Eight today so needed to get in the right mood for it. It's on Netflix, something I noticed when I was searching for my Netflix film to watch this week and thought it made sense considering my plan of action today - so basically if you're in the UK and have Netflix you can go and stream it too.

Reservoir Dogs tells the story of a group of career criminals caught up in the aftermath of a botched heist, trying to figure out who set them up in a secluded warehouse. Besides the prologue with Tarantino's signature brilliantly natural and ever-engaging dialogue writing, the film plays to something that would be a staple throughout Tarantino's career (or at least the ones I've seen: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight), the non-linear storytelling beginning in medias res, in this case with a high speed getaway with a bleeding co-thief in the backseat - heart-racing stuff right from the get go. This film is bloody brilliant, and I hugely enjoyed it. There wasn't a single moment when the energy dropped or when things were uninteresting.


This was probably helped by the starting in medias res with flashbacks of expositional importance - the storytelling was excellent in its non-linear nature, with an expert awareness of how much to hold back to keep the audience guessing. It creates and sustains interest kind of in the way that Momento does, although Reservoir Dogs really does it's own thing, such that every hop back feels like you're really achieving something in coming to understand each character which is introduced and the circumstances under which they're meeting. This also helps with created really riveting plot-twists which you actually care about. Far from the trend of moddycoddling an audience and giving them everything they need Reservoir Dogs has the audience scrounging for tidbits, which makes all the plot twists all the more satisfying and unexpected, especially the one at the very end, which was a frankly superb way to end the movie.

The film benefits from the big, bold, eye-catching style which would come to define Tarantino's filmography. The acting, then, is so passionately in key with this style. The acting is amazing, not in a 100% naturalistic realism way but in a way which means every actor's performance adds to the cohesion of the film as a complete work of art. However, that itself undeniably comes down to amazing writing and directing: every moment is fascinating and very real and utterly, passionately unflinching. Watching this film feels like witnessing something incredibly raw, incredibly close to the essence of the human understanding of violence, but also incredibly playful in its sadistic way, which is what made this film such a fantastic piece of art. Tarantino's writing, as well as his directing, serves to make this an excellent movie creating characters who are so expertly drawn as to make them entirely believable, realised human beings. There isn't one protagonist you want to win, every character is in some way the focus of the viewer's attention.

Overall, I'm giving Reservoir Dogs a 9.5/10 (or 4.5/5 if /when I move to a 5-star system…) and wholly recommend streaming it on Netflix if you haven't watched it before already. For some reason this review took a whole lot of effort to write, but now it's on to a review of The Hateful Eight coming shortly.

Please feel free to comment what you agree or disagree with, I'd be delighted to discuss, and you can leave your email address to be notified of replies or comment anonymously if you'd prefer. More reviews coming soon :)

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