Reservoir Dogs Review- By Michael Carlisle

 Title: Reservoir Dogs
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Year: 1992
Country: U.S
Language: English

I first saw Reservoir Dogs a few years ago during a crime film obsession phase. I wanted to see the best of what crime film had to offer and I was under the impression that Quentin Tarantino's film was the pinnacle of crime film. I became enthralled about this film and constantly told everybody I met to watch it. Years later I have quite a different opinion on it. I have seen quite a lot of film noir and heist movies. Films like Le Samourai and Le Cercle Rouge are far more superior in quality than Reservoir Dogs. I'm thinking I may have been a little too enthusiastic about Tarantino's debut feature when I first saw it. It's decent compared to bad crime film, but terrible compared to good crime films.

Reservoir Dogs is about six criminals who don't know each other but are hired by a crime boss to carry out a diamond heist. They are given false names so that they won't know each other to well and thus focus on the job at hand. They are completely sure that the heist will go as planned, but when police show up at the robbery unexpected panic spreads among the group. One man is killed during a shootout and the remaining crew meet up at their rendezvous point, eventually suspecting that one of them is an undercover cop.

Many people praise Quentin Tarantino for this film, but it merely a copy and paste routine. If he was musician he would have to pay royalties, if he was an author he would be sued for plagiarism. Every aspect of this film is an "homage" to another film. Can even we call it an "homage" if the entire film is essentially the film version of a Frankenstein monster? The infamous ear torture scene is from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. The identification by colors (Mr.Pink) is from The Taking of Pelham 1,2,3. The jewel heist narrative that omits the entire jewel heist is from Once Upon a Time n America. Tarantino isn't a genius, he's an un-talented thief.

The "original" dialogue in this film, though that is likely stolen from another film as well, isn't all that impressive. The "waitress tipping" scene is useless banter that stalls time and doesn't contribute to character development at all. Reservoir Dogs is all bark but no bite. Meaningless words are more of background noise to a film that looks like it could be good. Indeed it's likely the style and look of the film that brought people's attention, it is different from any Hollywood film you would see but if you attempt to look for better films with a similar look you will definitely find some.

In conclusion, this film is like the king of three legged dogs. It may look good at first, until you notice that there are loads of dogs with four legs. Reservoir Dogs isn't one film, but a mesh of films put together that don't work as well as it's supposed to. Based on this film can we call Tarantino a competent film-maker? Not at all. Though admittedly he does get better with Pulp Fiction and loses any credibility he had after Kill Bill Vol. Piss on it! 2/5