It took me too long to revisit this modern crime classic.

Rating: 8/10 (11 May 2012)

Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino's feature debut is a viscerally entertaining, powerful, witty, and well acted piece of work that at once showcased his way with dialogue and tendency to leap back and forth in time. A group of lowlife criminals with clashing personalities get together for a diamond robbery that goes horribly wrong. (Now, we never see the actual robbery, but the vivid descriptions supplied by the characters still tell us what we need to know, and truth be told, it works just as well in ones' imagination.) Now the survivors have holed up in a warehouse where, in between their verbal attacks on one another, they work at figuring out what went wrong, and realize that one of their own has to have been a rat. You know you're going to be in for an interesting time when a group of grown men are debating the message in the lyrics to Madonna songs; this is just one example of the way Tarantino really cares about character and dialogue. Here, of course, he was already dropping pop culture references (Marvel Comics characters, the TV series 'Get Christie Love') and quoting the movies that influenced him, in his approach to telling this story. It's often effectively gory, and many people are quite familiar with the show stopping torture sequence, even though in actuality we don't see the worst of it. The whole thing is grimly compelling; this odd assemblage of characters reveal little details about themselves throughout and often just get on each others' nerves. No matter how ugly this may get, it's the kind of thing one just keeps watching. A top notch cast excels, including Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, ex-con turned author & screenwriter Eddie Bunker, Tarantino himself, and legendary movie business tough guy / wild man Lawrence Tierney in one of his best over roles. The eclectic soundtrack is a treat to listen to, with Stealers Wheel rightfully earning, at the time, newfound appreciation for their old song "Stuck in the Middle with You". Solidly entertaining all the way through, "Reservoir Dogs" served as a fine announcement to the world that a fresh talent had arrived, and holds up extremely well. It's gripping stuff that could work just as well on the stage, always striking and never boring. Eight out of 10.