Maybe Tarantino's best...

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2006)

"Reservoir Dogs" is, of course, the movie that lifted the legendary director Quentin Tarantino up to the A-list and is what paved the path for such movies as "Snatch". I suppose I do have a biased opinion of the movie, as Quentin Tarantino was on my list of favorite directors from having seen his other movies (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Jackie Brown) but I also have legitimate reasons to have absolutely adored this one.
There are seven main characters in all; Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Eddie Nice Guy (the late Chris Penn) and finally, Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney).
So here's the main summary: Joe, the boss, has assembled all the other main characters to steal a bag of diamonds for him. He assigns them color-coded aliases to hide their identities from being known even to each other, just to avoid any slip-of-the-tongues with cops or maybe even a rat in the group. But something in their plan to steal the diamonds went very wrong. One by one, the surviving men find their way back to their warehouse hideout, which is where almost the entire movie takes place. There, they try to find the traitor among them who tipped off the police and chaos strikes. There's a lot of blood, sudden outbursts, confrontations, disloyalty, unexpected fights and a lot of dark humor during this time. In all, it is a violent movie with clever and funny dialog, and with a great "Sounds Of 'Seventies" soundtrack. The ending is also unexpectedly moving (well, I haven't really given anything away!). No one could ever get bored during this movie (or any other Tarantino movie for that matter) because the dialog is just so perfectly conversational and spot-on. I know that I said this before, but I had to say it again. The witty and realistic conversation in the first scene in which Tarantino's character, Mr. Brown, dissects Madonna's "Like a Virgin" is simply hilarious. You'll find yourself laughing smugly during the entire movie.
Also, every single one of the actors portrayed their characters extremely well. Harvey Keitel really proved himself an amazing actor to me in this movie. I was never much of a fan of his until I'd seen "Reservoir Dogs" (his role in "Taxi Driver" wasn't too challenging and in "Mean Streets" he was just annoying really). His character was compassionate and bad-ass all at once, and both those adjectives are very contradicting so for him to have done the amazing job he did do by playing them at the same time, I would have to cheer loudly for Keitel. Tim Roth was also wonderful and I can't say why without having to give most of the movie away. But if you watch it, you'll know what I mean.
To be honest, I don't have a single negative thing to say about this movie. (Okay, so seeing an ear being cut off wasn't exactly my cup of tea but that's probably the only criticism.) A definite favorite, and a classic.