An average movie from Quentin "One hit wonder" Tarantino

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 1999)

Pulp Fiction might be the best movie of the decade and Reservoir Dogs is not a bad movie, its just not very good. Tarantino deserves all the praise in the world for Pulp Fiction, it was a great script, wonderful direction and he even managed to resurrect the dead (John Travolta.) Reservoir Dogs struggles most of the way after a great first five minutes. The movie's psychological tension falls well short of what it could be because it is quickly lost through thoughtless violence. Violence can fit if its done well (Fargo, Godfather, Pulp Fiction) but this violence is totally pointless. Useless and tasteless violence like this is only needed in a movie with no story, if the movie already has a story it turns the viewer away from an otherwise provocative story as was the case in Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino seems to have the know-how to make an excellent movie, only he manages to blow it every time except for Pulp Fiction. Reservoir Dogs is not without fine acting, at the forefront are Tim Roth and Chris Penn, Michael Madsen is excellent too, but Steve Buscemi is not on par with his performances in Desperado and Fargo and Harvey Keitel is just awful. I can't stomach his waivering from trying to look cool and tough to whining and crying in vigalantic protection of Tim Roth and back an forth. I suppose it could work, but not Keitel, wrong guy for the movie, he should stick to Sister Act. Tarantino casts himself perfectly as Mr. Brown, he has a brief but very funny part both talking about Madonna and yelling "I'm going blind!" his acting is not bad at all in this one. All in all, Tarantino was close, but this movie ends up not being a lot of fun, not a lot of story nor a lot of thought, we'll only ever see those three from him once in this lifetime. What has he been doing lately anyway? Maybe Travolta needs to return the favor and try to bring the spotlight back on Tarantino. **