It's a dog eat dog world out there... (etc.)

Rating: 9/10 (24 September 2003)

It's obvious from the opening conversation on reasons why not to tip and the meaning of Madonna's 'Like a Virgin' that Reservoir Dogs tries to be different. To begin, it doesn't fit the expected narrative structure. Instead of the usual 10 minute robbery at the end of the movie after various stages of planning, the entire running time is centered around the surrounding hours of the heist - with only flashbacks giving any information of the characters lives before. The dialogue is refreshingly different, often hilarious. Even if there is a heavy reliance on taboo. The film is cool. Very cool (unlike that cliched pause just now). The crooks are smartly dressed in suits and walk down the street to 'Little Green Bag' in what is the most stylish strut in cinema history. Other sophisticated attributes are the aliases given to the crooks, which each resemble a colour instead of revealing their own names. It leaves the impression that they don't trust each other, which they don't. So not surprisingly violence is a key theme. Claret is present in almost every scene. Whether it's Tim Roth losing several pints of blood or Micheal Madsen amputating a cop's ear in a torture session to the tune of 'Stuck in the middle with you' ( a powerful juxtaposition of a feel-good music with stomach-churning knife work) . The acting is generally good, especially from Madsen as the psycho 'Mr Blonde' who has a dominating screen presence in every scene he's in. The only flaw is a rather basic screenplay, which has an over reliance on dialogue. The concept isn't entirely original either, the plot and several scenes are borrowed from the Hong Kong film 'City on Fire' which was released much earlier. Despite this, the film remains an impressive and refreshing debut of a quality seldom encountered.