1992: Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs (Tarantino, 1992) 7/10

"Are you gonna bark all day little doggy? Or are you gonna bite?" (Mr Blonde)

In 1992, when Reservoir Dogs the debut film of Quentin Tarantino hit the screen at Sundance, little did the audience know that fifteen years later, this modestly budgeted $1.2 million dollar heist flick would arguably be the most influential film of the 90's.

Although the film only received cult status on home video after the release of Pulp Fiction, the world would quickly come to know of the improbable rise of Quentin Tarantino: a ravenous cineophile formerly working in a L.A speciality video store; writing and peddling screenplays for future films directed by Hollywood heavyweights Tony Scott (True Romance)and Oliver Stone (Natural Born Killers).

By the time Tarantino had dropped his sophomore effort Pulp Fiction two years later, his transformation from video geek to auteur chic was complete. His penchant for non-linear genre films filled with irreverant pop culture based dialogue spawned the career of Guy Ritchie and an entire sub-genre of mostly forgotten Tarantino copycats like Two Days In The Valley, Killing Zoe and more recently Smokin' Aces and Lucky Number Slevin. The success of Pulp Fiction at the box office elevated Miramax from an artsy independent known for films such as Neil Jordan's The Crying Game to a major Hollywood player. It is no small feat that post- Pulp Fiction Miramax commonly became referred to as the "House That Quentin Built."

Taking its aesthetic approach from Asian cinema, Italian westerns and Hollywood noir, Reservoir Dogs successfully blended plot narratives, visual pyrotechnics and concepts found in films such as Ringo Lam's City On Fire, Stanley Kubrick's The Killing and Sergio Corbucci's Django: producing a work which felt simultaneously to be an original idea and a plagarized homage.

Focusing on a botched diamond heist at a Los Angeles jewellers, Tarantino's film examines the pre- and post-crime as the group of specialized thieves and career criminals return to their rendezvous point. One by one, the members assemble to discuss the fragmented and contradictory pieces of their existence. Here, accusations and threats fly in quick succession; to be followed later by gasoline-soaked interrogations and gun-toting displays of machismo.

The members of the heist represent a lifetime of networking and business relationships developed by aging dynamo Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and his dense heir Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn). Determined to camouflage, the true identities of the participants, Cabot assigns them colour coded names: Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) and Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen). With their respective individual skills, the plan appears flawless, yet dangerous: robbing a busy jewelry store in broad daylight. But while the plan, Cabot constructs seems impeccable on paper; in reality it collapses due to the individual flaws of its participants: greed, mental instability, garrulousness, excess and so forth.

Tarantino's artistic decision to focus on the before and after the robbery, but not the event itself, is arguably the film's most interesting narrative construct: allowing for unrestrained human emotion to spill over onto Tarantino's bloody canvass. Augmented by Sally Menke's episodic editing, Tarantino creates an organized diametrical examination of the professional conduct before the crime and the chaotic response in its aftermath. Through this lens, Tarantino is able to selectively address the conflicts and weaknesses within the film's principal characters such as Mr. Orange, Mr. White and Mr. Blonde.

Like the Noir films which inspired it, Reservoir Dogs patiently reveals the darkness of human nature through acts of selfishness, greed, cruelty and betrayal. No-one is spared from man's ability to administer contempt and destruction. Using a Noir framework, Tarantino includes an archetypal "fall guy" and (in this case) a homme fetale in the form of Harvey Keitel's Mr. White and Tim Roth's Mr. Orange. Focusing on Hawskian themes of masculine honour, Tarantino examines the concept of honour among theives; coming to similar negative conclusions to those realized by French crime auteur Jean-Pierre Melville and Western director Sam Peckinpah.

As the criminal act descends into madness, the codes of professionalism and honour which Cabot's cadre professes, disintegrate at the single pull of a trigger. The appetite for revenge and blood overrides the criminal's concepts of morality. No longer the embodiment of cool, the trigger-happy Mr. Blonde reveals his true character as a sadistic beast. His bullet-strewn rampage causes the nervy Mr. Pink to repeatedly question the group's professionalism, while the veteran Mr. White loses respect and questions his own involvement in the heist.

The breakdown of honour results in the collapse of the group's loose conception of fraternity. In Tarantino's behind the scenes approach, the director reveals to the audience the personalities at work, rather than the methodology of the crime. Through their interactions with one another, we see the friendships and binding ties. Indebted to Cabot, we see former jailbird Mr. Blonde return to his employer's nest. In gratitude for Mr. Blonde's silence in prison, Cabot rewards his protege with financial benefits and steady employment.

But the loyalty, Cabot expects is replaced by betrayal as his team splinter into various factions based on intricate fraternal bonds: Mr. White sides with the wounded Mr. Orange; Nice Guy Eddie aloof to the events in question sides with his old chum Mr. Blonde; Mr. Pink sides with the only person he can trust, himself. Thus the group becomes individualized with only their colour-coded names unifying their relationship.

Operating with this collective are concepts of masculinity, which are entwined to concepts of honour, loyalty and sexuality. It is telling that other than a few extras, the principal cast of Reservoir Dogs is all male. In this malecentric gaze, Tarantino explores a world of ignorant, macho bigots, who indulge in childish games and traditional male feats of strength. Everyone in Cabot's group are openly sexist and racist in their language. Within the group, a white male micro-culture has been established which bars membership and recognition to "outsiders" based on their ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.

Through sexual banter and tussles, the film's characters try to out do one another in open displays of their masculinity. Characters boast about heterosexual sexual conquests and fantasies, as a method to lessen the homoerotic nature of the group. When Nice Guy Eddie reunites with Mr. Blonde after the latter is released from prison, Eddie quizzes Mr. Blonde on his possible homosexual encounters behind bars. Disguised in humourous vocabulary, Eddie's language and tone reinforces a contradictory perception of masculinity displayed in Reservoir Dogs.

On the one hand, Mr. Blonde is the embodiment of a true man in his admiration for Lee Marvin and his disciplined loyalty to the Cabot crime syndicate. Eddie's interrogation of Mr. Blonde's sexual orientation and his fraternization with African-Americans in jail suggests an opposing interpretation of masculinity in which homosexuality and non-whiteness are viewed as being undesirable and less manly.

Coupled with their sexist and racist epithets, their opinion of homosexuals and other races suggests the members of the group are not only ignorant, but are also deeply threatened by these social groups within their space as evident by Mr. Pink's dismay at obtaining his name: rendering him impotent in his decision-making the rest of the film. This theme is also shown in Pulp Fiction in the homosexual police officer who rapes (and thus emasculates) Marcellus Wallace.

The homoerotic nature of their work amplifies the film's sub-text. However, it is interesting to note that the relationship between Nice Guy Eddie and Mr. Blonde suggests that the former perhaps is physically attracted toward his close friend Mr. Blonde. His repeated inquisitions into Mr. Blonde's sexual history and his enjoyment of physically touching Mr. Blonde through wrestling suggests his desire for Mr. Blonde to acknowledge and validate his feeling via reciprocation. Given the film's emphasis on characters disguising their identities through their allotted colour-coded names, it is perhaps possible that Nice Guy Eddie is attempting to disguise his own sexual orientation through boasts and immature physicality.

This notion of acting is another theme addressed in Reservoir Dogs. Through their adopted colours, the characters take on new roles in Cabot's operation: disguising their pasts and expanding upon their personas. With their own criminal speciality, each becomes an important actor in this ultimate criminal performance. The character of Mr. Blonde is able to mask his true psychopathic nature as a cold-blooded executor of torture and sadism; while Mr. Orange is able to become the ultimate actor in his ability to skillfully infiltrate Cabot's group.


* Reservoir Dogs is available on R1 DVD in countless editions from Artisan Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque