RUDIMENTARY RAMBLING FOR THE LEGENDARY 'RESERVOIR DOGS'

Lawrence Tierney in RESERVOIR DOGS Year: 1991 Rating: *****

If, before 1991, someone mentioned that a movie involving a group of hardened thugs… including Noir legend/tough guy Lawrence Tierney, 1970's cinema legend who resembles an actual criminal Harvey Keitel, and real life ex-prisoner Eddie Bunker… would sit around in a diner discussing (or listening to others discuss) Madonna songs, no one would believe it....

But it took that kind of creative pop culture insanity to create one of the greatest modern crime flicks, written and directed by a former video store employee who’d soon become an international icon...

Quentin Tarantino in RESERVOIR DOGS

By use of nonlinear time-frame and backstories shown as simply occurring without being fuzzy screen character flashbacks. he altered the way tales unfold on the big and small screen, still... and is one of the few directors, the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg, whose very name would become a genre...

His first, RESERVOIR DOGS, is still one of Quentin Tarantino’s best, or at least his most cutthroat and gritty, evolving around a group of anonymous color-coded-name-only diamond thieves before and after a heist-gone-wrong… which we never actually witness... 

Tim Roth in RESERVOIR DOGS

This implied tactic absorbs the viewer’s imagination through dialogue describing the aftermath, letting us see the good, the bad, and the ugly of this particular wild bunch, most people discovering the gem on VHS and introduced to the auteur’s flowing wordplay and retro song selections...

And while it’s hard to say who's truly the main character in what's mainly an ensemble piece, an it's most likely Tim Roth, who, after the first half of bickering dialogue… three cons figuring out which thug ratted to the cops about the heist… Roth becomes a protagonist to care about i.e. a possible light at the end of a bleak tunnel... actually a warehouse... filled with literally colorful, frantically offbeat, shady characters...

Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi in RESERVOIR DOGS

Like Steve Buscemi as the exposition-spouting, scene-stealing hopped-up jerk that doesn't "believe" in tipping waitresses... who'd be the first to die under a more conventional director... and Michael Madsen as the villainous heavy in a film about heavies (so comparable to Al Lettieri's villain of villains from THE GODFATHER, Madsen would play Al's role in THE GETAWAY remake)...

The late Chris Penn, as crime boss Lawrence Tierney’s temperamental yet charming son, and at that time, from having co-starred in FOOTLOOSE before altering Christopher to Chris and gaining lots of weight, was the most recognizable name after Keitel countered by no-name Kirk Baltz as a very unluckily tortured blue suit cop and, along with Randy Brooks as a backstory cop mentoring Roth, adds talent to the now legendary bloodshed of brilliance that's yet to be surpassed on such a basic, primal level while still surpassing Tarantino's sophomore game-changer, PULP FICTION...

Lawrence Tierney in RESERVOIR DOGS with Chris Penn & Michael Madsen

But no matter how tough these comparably younger guys are, 1940's DILLINGER Lawrence Tierney's Joe not only calls the shots, but makes up the nicknames, and ultimately wants to know who's been naming names while, like Wolfman Jack in one of Quentin's favorites, AMERICAN GRAFFITI, everything's balanced by a radio station playing classic tunes and hosted by the dry genius of Steven Wright...

Yet with all the juicy lines, (now) classic actors, and intensive situations, it’s the camaraderie between Keitel, as the most experienced of the thugs, and Roth, who’s bleeding his life away on the filthy warehouse floor, that provide the real soul throughout, and, while most would consider this heist-gone-wrong neo-noir exploitation an Asphalt Western, RESERVOIR DOGS is more a downtown modern day life-and-death war picture.... with no winners, only losers... of the wonderfully slimiest kind. 

Classic Opening Credits for Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Harvey Keitel as Mr White in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Michael Madsen as Mr Blonde in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Chris Penn as Nice Guy Eddie in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Steve Buscemi as Mr Pink in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Lawrence Tierney as Joe Cabot in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Eddie Bunker as Mr Blue in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Quentin Tarantino as Mr Brown in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Tim Roth as Mr. Orange in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

from Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS

Tim Roth in RESERVOIR DOGS

Tim Roth in RESERVOIR DOGS with Kirk Baltz

yLawrence Tierney in RESERVOIR DOGS

Eddie Bunker in RESERVOIR DOGS

Lawrence Tierney in RESERVOIR DOGS

Tim Roth in RESERVOIR DOGS

Lawrence Tierney in RESERVOIR DOGS

Harvey Keitel in RESERVOIR DOGS

Michael Madsen in RESERVOIR DOGS

Lawrence Tierney in Quentin Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS