Stuck in the middle with you.

Rating: 9/10 (23 July 2000)

There are few films that have revolutionised cinema. Citizen Kane. The Godfather. Jaws. Die Hard. Reservoir Dogs. Before Reservoir Dogs came onto the scene, we were stuck with any crappy script making it's way to film within a year of it being written. The 80s were a bad time for movies. The excellence of the 70s movies(Godfather, Jaws, Apocalapse Now, Taxi Driver) had gone. Video had meant cinemas were not as popular as before. Then came one small film made an a tiny budget with no- name (except Harvey Keitel) actors, written and directed by a newcomer who had dropped out of school at 16 and worked in a video store until now. This little film was the best thing to happen in cinema for a long time. It was a simple story about a heist gone wrong. It was set in a warehouse. But it was told with a set of flashbacks to make it more complicated than that. There were pop-culture refrences throughout this film, and the acting was superb. Did I mention it contained lots of profanitisin' and violence which sparked up controversy? A cops ear being cut off to the sounds of 'Stuck in the middle with you'. This was a great film without cliche's and was incredibly original(apart from the fact that it was a story 'borrowed' from 'city on fire'. Tarantino's 2nd best.