Great caper from early 90's

Rating: 9/10 (23 June 2005)

Tarantino's career started off with a bang thanks to this caper film. It's not suitable for all audiences but if you like a little ultra violence and aren't too tight you'll definitely like it.
The dialog is extremely well written, it contains lots of humor, especially sarcasm which is very hard to achieve. The opening scene and the debate about the aliases are priceless. The acting is flawless. Buscemi, Madsen, Roth and Keitel are all equally outstanding. Tierny and Penn team up perfectly. The smaller parts played by Tarantino, Jackson and Bunker are all very colorful. The directing may not be anything special, but even though there are a few incoherences, it's rather solid. The (in)famous ear cutting scene has some smart direction as the camera moves away from the mutilation and shows us a door with "WATCH YOUR HEAD" written over it. Many interesting themes are brought up throughout the film. Loyalty and reliability seem to be the main one, Mr Blonde stuck up for Joe, Mr Orange tells Mr White the truth, all the robbers go to the meeting place despite the fiasco.
As always the soundtrack is excellent. In Reservoir Dogs it has something more than in Tarantino's other films as the heist takes place at the same time as a special retro 70's music radio show. Tune's from the 70's are scattered all over the story as characters turn the radio on and off. I think that that was a very good idea and a nice little touch. All the more because the songs are often used to illustrate what's happening on the screen. As Mr Blonde tortures Nash, 'Stuck in the Middle with you' highlights the two cops' situation who are stuck in the warehouse with a few panicked criminals. The last song 'Coconut' brings us back to reality, if you listen to the lyrics, it's just a silly song about a guy who wants to get rid of his belly ache. This is very ironic as one of the characters has just spent the last 90 minutes with a bullet in his gut. Tarantino is basically saying that this was just a film, not real life.
Although Pulp Fiction is probably the better of the two, Reservoir Dogs is my favorite Tarantino film. I'm not too sure why, I think the experimental side tips it for me. Having the whole story happen in the warehouse with just a few flashbacks to tell us everything was clever and hard to pull off, but here it's done perfectly.
9/10