Any serious fan of film should see Reservoir Dogs at least once

Rating: 7/10 (2 September 2006)

Pro: First use of Tarentino's trademark non-linear narrative, which works so seamlessly you aren't even aware of how well he handled it until the story is over.
Pro: Terse, snappy, epigrammatic dialog, seemingly more written for a stage play than a movie, filled with hard-boiled cynicism and gallows humor, but still utterly revealing of character and motivation. David Mamet only wishes he could integrate speeches this snappy into his movie screenplays.
Pro: Picture perfect performances by Keitel, Buscemi and Tierney;an intermittently great job by Roth; an utterly weird but memorable performance by Madsen, who managed to deliver some utterly over-the-top lines in a believable affectless manner. (The one exception: the keynote line, "Are you gonna bark, little dog, or are you gonna bite?" This is perhaps the most famous line in the movie, but really, it's also the worst line in the movie. Steve McQueen couldn't have made that line work, and Madsen can't make it work either.)
Pro: Atmospheric and evocative soundtrack, especially the opening Ventures-like rockabilly song from the famous opening "walking scene". I don't even like most of these songs from the 70's (or 70's pop music in general), but they all work here.
Con: It drags in a few spots, notably the scene with Penn, Madsen and Tierney as they welcome Madsen's character back from prison, and the heist planning scene with all the back-and-forth about assigned aliases. And as much as I admire what they were trying to do with Roth's extended 'anecdote', the story just didn't ring true. Roth reads it well, but the sequence simply goes on too long with too little grit or impact or telling detail. Since the whole point of the anecdote is to deliver the 'telling detail' so it rings true, the whole thing collapses on itself. It's so obviously a 'movie thing', when the same effect could have been achieved with a shorter, punchier aside from the character about how he smacked some cop around and made him cry, etc.
Con: Chris Penn's performance is the weakest in the film, partially because the character he plays is something of an idiot and a thick- mouthed goomba. Penn is still a pro level actor, but he just isn't as sharp as the rest of the cast. And this was just about the point in his career when he started expanding like a balloon; it's hard to look at him now when you remember the wiry, vital,young Chris Penn and also know how how he ended up. (Rest In Peace, Chris).
Con: Similarly, Tarantino insists on doing cameos to no good purpose in his own films, but he's not charismatic enough to merit the screen time - he's just odd and goofy looking, and he always comes across as an irritating geek. This may well be on purpose, and may be a self-deprecating in-joke on his part, but I can think of a dozen character actors who would have done his role much better - including the older, weathered-looking actor who played "Mr. Blue", who had twice Tarentino's class as a screen actor, and should have been given twice as much to do.
Con: And lets face it, the whole film is an exercise in hard-boiled outlaw machismo, and Steve McQueen (and Glen Ford and James Cagney and Jack Palance) did it better and did it first...which would have been readily apparent except for the clever story structure and the layered flashbacks.
But still, I liked it a lot, and I feel it holds up well more than 10 years after its release. The film itself isn't all that much, but it was the right film for the time, and it made a lot of noise, and Tarantino has spring-boarded to other slicker projects that are a lot of good, irresponsible fun. This is definitely a must for the student and fan of Western pop culture. I would actually rate this something like a "7.49", but the rating system doesn't do half stars.