Interesting Premise, Solid Outing

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2005)

We should have known there was something about this guy from Tennesse named Quentin Tarantino when we saw his first solo effort, Reservoir Dogs. While not as total an effort as his later movies, Reservoir Dogs does have some revolutionary value to it. Written mostly by Taratino, Reservoir Dogs is a crime movie where the crime failed. A group of 6 anonymous men, each with a different code name, come together under crime boss Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) to steal a diamond shipment from a Los Angeles diamond store. The first scene gives us a sense of who these men are and what makes them tick as they are finishing up their breakfast before the heist. The next thing we see is afterward, 2 of the men are dead and the other 4 are trying to figure out what happened. There is the usual Tarantino dialog, featuring lots of cursing, lots of pop-culture, but also unexpected humor, and also boasts Tarantino musical selections that fit the scenes well, most people think of Reservoir Dogs now when hearing the song "Stuck In the Middle With You." The film overall is good, Tarantion takes the crime caper movie and spins it around, what would it be like if a movie heist actually failed, but that is about as far as it goes. There is a lot of talking, I had wished a little more actually happened, and the ending is just that, an ending, nothing more. There's lots of blood and people shooting at each other, and is interesting. Tarantino would prove later that he is capable of completing what he started, just not quite with Reservoir Dogs.