"City on Fire", the remake?

Rating: 8/10 (22 June 1999)

Despite the fact that this film 'borrows' lots of elements, i.e. the main aspects of the story, from Ringo Lam's "City on Fire"(1987), this is an excellent debut film for Tarantino.
He has abstracted, in my opinion, the better ideas from "City on Fire" and reworked/formatted them in a fresher style. The better ideas 'taken' from the storyline include - a young cop who penetrates and assists a wanted gang(and main leader) with a jewellery heist, which of course goes wrong because of an informed police ambush; the young cop becoming good friends with the older robber; then a fateful episode at the rendez-vous point, containing the memorable gun stand-off scene with three of the gang members(although this amounts to nothing in "City on Fire").
Although this pretty much sounds like a blatant rip-off, Tarantino cleverly manages to freshen the plot up and modernise it by not even showing the heist and keeping the film in present tense, with relevant flashbacks. This adds to the audiences' intrigue as to what actually happened at the robbery and who the rat is.
Another gripe that I have with the film though is regarding a couple of continuity errors. Firstly, in a flashback straight after the robbery we see Mr Pink(Buscemi) running down the street with a bag(presumably containing the diamonds). But when he goes to get into the car he places the bag onto the ground, and we then see him driving away, without picking the bag up! Secondly, when Eddie, Mr Blonde and Mr Pink bring the hostage cop, Marvin Nash, into the warehouse his hands are tied/cuffed behind his back. Moments later his hands are in front of him, enabling him to be hung up from his arms. And although this sounds like I am being picky, it's the tiny things like this which annoy me in films.
Despite this "Reservoir Dogs" is a brilliant film with an excellent cast and great acting, especially Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Steve Buscemi; superb dialogue which is occasionally witty; moments of violence, which I do not believe to be too gratuituous; a simple but effective wardrobe; and a really, really good soundtrack from beginning to end.
To conclude, I would have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed watching "Res. Dogs", and I recommend it as a definite must-see film, along with "City on Fire". "Res. Dogs" is full of the style and black humour which Tarantino also later applied to "Pulp Fiction", and serves as a text which shows that the genre of violent films can actually also look really cool.