A Little Bloodsoaked, Pop Culture-Based, Green Bag

RESERVOIR DOGS (1992)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

When I first saw Quentin Tarantino's debut "Reservoir Dogs," I found it to be a gory heist film, a sort of latter-day Scorsese take on modern-day hoods minus any real moral complexity. Times have changed since 1992 and "Reservoir Dogs" is still gory but it bursts forth with such energy and vitality that it would be wrong to dismiss it a second time. I think what I missed the first time was the black humor and the strong personalities of its characters. The violence, as brief and abrupt as it is, is so strong and vivid that it can almost demolish anything else. But what I had missed was Tarantino's evident talent in his own screenplay.

The opening sequence is already a classic. The setting is a diner as a group of robbers sit around the table and ruminate on subjects like Madonna's "Like a Virgin," tipping, and rock and roll songs ("The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" is briefly discussed). In retrospect, none of this has anything to do with the rest of the film. What it does is set up a mood and establish its characters. Following that sequence is a title sequence where the robbers walk in slow-motion as "Little Green Bag" plays on the soundtrack. Then the film shifts in time and place to a bungled robbery where Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) is in a getaway car as Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) screams in agonizing pain after getting shot in the belly. They are off to a meeting place, a warehouse where coffins are stored! They meet with the obnoxious Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), a lanky mess of a robber with a goatee and an attitude like a junkyard dog (as does everyone else in the movie). There is much talk about whether or not to take Mr. Orange to a hospital or wait for the big boss, Joe (Lawrence Tierney), and tell him that the robbery was a possible set-up.

Then we confront the Lee Marvin fan, Mr. Blue (Michael Madsen), a trigger-happy, obscenely violent criminal who feels that shooting the hostages one by one was justified since they might have initiated the alarm. This man is suave but also a cruel, mean psychopath with no misgivings about slicing a cop's ear while listening to "Stuck in the Middle With You" (a nod to the violent ballet dance of "A Clockwork Orange" complete with "Singin' In The Rain" being sung by Alex, the prototypical antihero of the 1970's). This controversial scene is so disgusting that it caused major walkouts, particularly among women. But Tarantino, who has been criticized for showing gratuitous violence, knows when to cut away, pardon the pun, and how much to show on screen. His scenes of violence are quick and effective, precisely because they occur too fast. It is the brutality inherent in the violence that gets to people.

And I have not yet discussed Tarantino's screenplay - it is quite wonderful and it shares a particular speech style where everyone tries to interrupt each other and go off on tangents. Basically, one can think of it as Mamet-speak but the energy level is different, more stylized. Consider a near-perfect sequence where we discover Mr. Orange's true identity and the story he tells to the group about a marijuana deal. Mr. Orange describes in detail how he had a carry-on bag with marijuana in the bathroom where the cops (and a loud dog) watch him as he stands by the urinal. In this scene, Tarantino defies logic and narrative construction by having Mr. Orange tell his tale, speaking the words as he stares at the cops, as if he was in a situation that never actually occurred. It is by far the most memorable sequence in the film. Sometimes, characters indulge in conversations that have nothing to do with the story at all. For example, one scene has Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn) tell the story of a Pam Grier-type waitress who, well, you have to hear to believe it. The characters discuss movies and TV and songs and other people's lives the way people in real life do. But when it is time for some business related to the robbery, they get in character.

One aspect I noticed about "Reservoir Dogs" is that this is a man's world. Women hardly figure in the film, they are only discussed as objects or as criminals (like the Mr. White story of a female robber named Alabama). These guys discuss and joke about explicit sexual acts to each other. At one point, Mr. Blue, fresh from being released from prison, fools around with Nice Guy Eddie, who tells Blue that his sexual acts with black men messed up his mind. The end of the film has Mr. White comforting the dying Mr. Orange, calmly caressing his head as if they were lovers. There is a curious homosexual subtext, or we can just see it as men who act macho by discussing having sex with each other. I'll go with the latter.

"Reservoir Dogs" is fast, furious, nasty and extremely entertaining. It placed Tarantino on the map, just prior to his crime epic "Pulp Fiction" a couple of years later. My one criticism is that his characters are shallow and lack much depth. Still, since no one in the film knows much about each other then perhaps that was the point.