Reservoir Dogs Movie
Unless you were Quentin Tarantino's buddy or you attended a lot of swanky film school parties back in the early 90s you didn't get a chance to see much Tarantino before Reservoir Dogs. Sure, there were some backyard films he made with friends, and some early cuts of his short films or the screenplay work he was doing leaked out to certain audiences, but for the most part Reservoir Dogs was the first Tarantino film that the world would see.
You couldn't ask for a stronger freshman release. Dogs has it all -- an astounding cast headed up by Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, and Tim Roth, one of the tightest screenplays in recent years, and a plot as twisted and thick as the brain behind it. Though the Reservoir Dogs movie was not instantly a success at the box office (earning just over $2 million domestically) it would go on to be a huge success in Europe and pull in plenty of cash from rentals and replay rights here in the States.
Quentin Tarantino Reservoir Dogs
Most importantly, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs launched his career. It launched the career of a strange little high school dropout with a taste for violence, women's feet, and obscure cinema. Who was this wiry guy with mussed hair and a squinty expression and why was he suddenly the toast of the film world? After Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs people wanted more -- little did they know how much of him they'd get in the coming years.
Reservoir Dogs Review
This Reservoir Dogs review briefly summarizes the movie.
The Reservoir Dogs movie depicts the story of Los Angeles gangster Joe Cabot and a handful of criminals he's brought together to do a big job. Put simply, it is a "heist film", though the attention Tarantino paid to the script and the effort his cast put into the telling of the story make it something more than that.
In the film, we meet six crooks known only by their code names (all colors -- Mr. Brown, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink, etc) as they prepare to rip off a jeweler. Most of the film takes place at the gang's rendezvous spot -- an empty warehouse. We don't get to see the robbery fall apart -- all we see are the after-shocks. As the crooks arrive one by one at the rendezvous the story of the broken robbery comes together, as does the true nature of the heist itself. Without giving the plot away, you can expect a cop, a series of betrayals, and a badass "final scene" with guns drawn and pointed all over the place.
The Success of Reservoir Dogs
So what is the appeal of Reservoir Dogs? Why did this film succeed when many films like it had failed?
You can't ignore the appeal of the cast. Keitel, Buscemi, and Roth are at the top of their game, and you can't look away from the screen when one of these three is featured. But the stellar cast isn't just limited to the big names. Michael Madsen, who before Dogs had only minor roles in films like Thelma and Louise and The Natural, nearly steals the film in one particularly gruesome scene involving a razor blade and classic 70s song "Stuck In the Middle With You". Even Tarantino himself, only in the movie for a few moments, is memorable as the fast-talking Mr. Brown, who has some interesting opinions on the origin of some of Madonna's early music. With a cast like this, you could give them the script to Plan 9 From Outer Space and I would watch it, with great interest.
Another big reason for Dogs cult (though not financial) success -- a gritty and twisted plot that wraps back on itself so many times it very easily confuses casual watchers. Audiences love intricate plots, though they may not show up in full force to buy tickets, they'll find the movie eventually. Look at films like Fight Club, Memento or The Usual Suspects. There's a built-in audience for intelligent and complex plot lines. It is up to a film's promoters to get the movie in front of that audience, and it may have been a difficult task to get Tarantino's first film a lot of press. "Quentin who?" was probably a common reaction. This is obviously not a problem for Quentin Tarantino's movies anymore, but don't forget that before he was an international superstar he was a clerk at a video store.
Some would say that America's taste for violence was just starting to trend big in the early 90s -- Dogs hit the festival circuit in 1992 -- but this isn't supported by the facts of the box office. Dogs performed better in England (raking in almost 7 million bucks) and in certain European countries than it did here in "hyper violent" America. The top grossing film in America in 1992 was Disney's Aladdin, hardly a violent film unless you count violence towards monkeys or street urchins. No, I don't buy the argument that Quentin Tarantino's movies, or Reservoir Dogs in particular, benefit from an American audience that just loves to see blood.
Reservoir Dogs started it all off -- the huge fan base that Quentin Tarantino movies now enjoy is due entirely to the critical and cult success of this first film. Violent as it may be at times, and off-color as it always is, Dogs has a special place in the heart of cinema audiences. Before the high-gloss of Kill Bill or the return of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction there was this simple little heist movie -- a poem, a sonnet, an ode to films long forgotten, and a hint of great things to come from a great director.