As far as debuts from notable directors go, Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs” is up there with the finest. For other famous American directors today, Scorsese, the Coens, Coppola, Malick, Nolan, Spielberg and many more, may have had good if not great first films, but “Reservoir Dogs” is so dripping in the style that would govern all of Tarantino’s future films that is impossible to forget “Reservoir Dogs” in a discussion of them.
From his opening scene of an ultimately mundane and irrelevant conversation about Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and the merits of tipping, we still get a good sense of the kind of dialogue Tarantino is keen on, but more importantly a sense for the characters. Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) is a very good example of this in the opening scene. He doesn’t throw in a buck. He has principles that go against the norm. But let someone tougher, like Joe (Lawrence Tierney), pressure him a bit, and he’ll bend his position and hide.
If you knew ahead of time that “Reservoir Dogs” was a sort of gangster Shakespearean drama, you probably could’ve guessed Mr. Pink would be the one to survive at the end.
That’s how well crafted a film “Reservoir Dogs” is. The characters are so wonderfully fleshed out in an intriguing game of words, cabin fever and character motivations. In fact, Tarantino gets us to practically not care who the rat is for some time because the dialogue more than the plot is the film’s propulsion.
Granted, the film has a wonderful twist in the reveal that the gun wounded Mr. Orange is actually the rat. Tim Roth gives arguably the film’s best and most complex performance as the undercover cop in the gang. In such a short time we feel genuine sympathy for his character. We can see his growth where the other characters may have none. When Tarantino actually films the “commode story” he grants Mr. Orange a completely new personality so effortlessly. A lesser director would treat these images as another opportunity to get a violent rise out of the audience, but Tarantino turns it into an unexpected plot device.
And for all of Tarantino’s dialogue, much if it bordering on parody that would eventually grow into genuine winks to the camera in later movies, we can forget how stylish and economical he is behind the camera. His use of sound and point of view shots is remarkably elegant. And suffice it to say, the torture scene to “Stuck in the Middle With You” is undeniably mesmerizing.
We’re not constantly thinking about the camera movements, but it is there quite presently. In fact Tarantino’s voice always seems to poke through into the film, not necessarily through the story in some need to give homage to another genre of exploitation film, but certainly in the coy, pop culture drizzled dialogue.
“Reservoir Dogs” bears Tarantino’s mark more than most directors. Here is a filmmaker who knows the trajectory of his career and has never wavered from it.