Reservoir Dogs.

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Is Reservoir Dogs any good? I have never seen it, but keep seeing the DVD in stores.

Is Reservoir Dogs a gun movie? From the package it sort of looks like it might be similar to Heat or Way of The Gun. How is the gunplay in Reservoir Dogs? Does the gunplay justify the purchase of the DVD?

What exactly makes this film so well known?
 
I don't know if gunplay justifies the purchase of any movie. But Reservoir Dogs is an excellent film on a lot of levels.

Keith
 
Its a Quentin Tarantino film and just about everything written and directed by Q.T. is pretty twisted. I have the DVD and have watched it numerous times. Hard to stay up with though, it kinda starts at the end and jumps all around during the story.

Overall rating *** out of five stars.:cool:
 
Pulp Fiction is definitely a cut above but Reservoir Dogs has its moments. I thought some of the shootouts were pretty gritty for a movie, particularly the sequence where Mr. Pink first escapes. Although the older (and softer) I get, the less enthused I am about that whole ear scene.

Get it, 10 years later it still holds up pretty well. Just remember it was made on a shoestring budget, so don't expect impressive visuals (something that works in its favor, I think).
 
Saying Tarintino's movies are kind of twisted is like saying a Corvette can kind of exceed the speed limit. I'm not sure which one of his movies I like best, but Desperado (did he direct that one, or just make a cameo?), Pulp Fiction and Resevoir Dogs are all very close.

If you want to see a super-twisted movie shot in the Resevoir Dogs style, check out Killing Zoe (www.deepdiscountdvd.com has it cheap in a two pack with some other gun-movie for $12), its about a bank heist with all the guns and explosives to go with it.

Kharn
 
I got my copy for $9.99 and feel that the movie is not worth much more than that. Definitely not good enough to warrant the $90.00 collectors box edition I have been seeing in stores.

It's a decent flick, but Pulp Fiction pretty much blows it out of the water in every way imaginable.

There is another Tarantino movie coming out soon called "Kill Bill". Actually it is going to be a 2 part movie from what I have been hearing (with part 2 released a month after the first). Anyway, it is all about wire-fu and such. I'll probably see it but won't be expecting anything of Pulp Fiction quality.
 
Influenced An Entire Generation of 90's Filmaking

One of my all time favorite movies. It has that gritty pseudo-documentary "you are there" feel to it like a French New Wave film but with tougher and often very funny dialog. The whole movie you feel like these guys are gonna explode into violence at any moment. And when something does happen it feels spontaneous. It opened the doors for Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Harvey Keitel, and Steve Buscemi to bigger roles. And after Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino became hot property either as a Director, Writer, or Producer. Also one of the most influential soundtracks ever. Little known 70's hits "Little Green Bag", "Hooked on a Feeling" and "Stuck in the Middle With You" started appearing on TV commercials and radio throughout the 90's.

His other movies Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, True Romance (script), and Natural Born Killers (story) are all great but I consider Tarantino-lite compared to Dogs. Reservoir Dogs is not only where it began but the blue print for all the Tarantino rip-offs/inspired movies made since then like:

Get Shorty
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Snatch
Out of Sight
Usual Suspects
2 Days in the Valley
Boondock Saints
Go
Thing to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Way of the Gun
Doom Generation
Swingers
Desperado and From Dusk 'Til Dawn (which are directed by Robert Rodriguez. Tarantino helped produced the movies and got roles in them. Tarantino should not act :neener: )


and many more. It still continues to do so today.

Good Review BigG.


"I'm hungry. Let's go get a taco." - Mr. White
 
It's typical Tarantino, which is "meh" in my opinion. We'll be watching Reservoir Dogs tomorrow for a film studies class I'm taking. Hey, it's easy units and all the babes are in that class.
 
I give Reservoir Dogs 5 out of 5 stars. No chicks in it, just a bunch of guys, good shoot outs, great story told by one of the players, and it just makes for a fun two hours.

Pulp Fiction I didn't like at all. Same with Natural Born Killers. Hated it!
 
Reservior Dogs is a great movie! It's not great because of the gun fightrs either in my opinion. It's best quality is in the dialog and how the characters interact with each other.

I like the way that Tarantino takes the bad guys and makes them the center of the movie, and not always the good guy. Most of Hollywood is very formulaic in this respect, where they have to have a good guy always win out and the evil will be trumped. I'd say that 99% of the movies Tarantino does, the bad guy is the focus, and the good guy doesn't win at the end. Even when the good guy wins in the end, you have to wonder just how good he is.

Come to think of it, the only movie that I remember the good guy winning out is Four Rooms.

Natural Born Killers stank because Oliver Stone directed it. Kinda like A.I. stank because Speilberg directed it instead of Kubrick.
 
Reservoir dogs

Better than heat but not as good as pulp fiction or way of the gun
 
I think Harvey Keitel was well established long before appearing in Reservior Dogs.

I remember him all the way back to Taxi Driver, which I consider a good movie. Gory shoot out at the end of Taxi Driver. Kietel plays the pimp Matthew who is gut shot point blank by DeNiro.

Also, I think Keitel did "Mean Streets" too, which I think goes back quite a ways.

One interesting flick I saw Keitel in is "The Duel" which is about two French officers in Napoleon's army, and how their paths keep violently crossing with repeated duels, mostly with swords.
 
Yeah, Harvey Keitel was already an established "star" due to his association with Martin Scorsese well before Dogs. It was his clout that helped Tarantino make Reservoir Dogs. After Dogs it seemed like his career got a boost and I noticed him in more movies. His appearance in The Piano and Bad Lieutenant at the time also did a lot too but those were after Dogs. Great actor.

Reservoir Dogs is sort of like Bladerunner or even A Clockwork Orange, Rashomon and Citizen Kane in a way. Very influential but many people wonder why so many people are crazy about them. Its the overall aesthetic. And like the other greats it influenced the way it got others to really look at movies and the way violence, dialog, sets, costumes, music, and character is portrayed. That's what makes it so different. Its not just another obvious heist/gangster/action pic. Other movies its kinda obvious how the director and writer worked hard to build up and set up the highly choreographed action scenes. You can see it coming. In Dogs and his subsequent movies, the violence seems true to the story and the characters. Its also not pretty and doesn't look choreographed like others. It just happens, almost as if the actors improvised them on set and the camera just happened to be there.
 
Reservoir Dogs is not only where it began but the blue print for all the Tarantino rip-offs/inspired movies made since then like:

Get Shorty
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels
Snatch
Out of Sight
Usual Suspects
2 Days in the Valley
Boondock Saints
Go
Thing to Do in Denver When You're Dead
Way of the Gun
Doom Generation
Swingers
Click to expand...

Not really fair to put "Get Shorty" and "Out of Sight" in there. They were based on novels from Elmore Leonard, and Tarantino is a fan of Leonard's novels, so perhaps he was inspired by them.

I liked Reservoir Dogs. Didn't care for Pulp Fiction.
 
Spackler,

Both excellent movies and they hold up in their own right. The movies were not carbon copies but some more than others. But the general tone, narrative, dialog and characters would not have been the same if not for Dogs I feel. I'm sure Tarantino was also influenced by Leonard, as well as the hard boiled writers of the 40's, B movies, Hong Kong flics, and of course classic film noir like Stanley Kubrick's The Killers.

Vic,

No .45's in Reservoir Dogs. They were all armed with identical S&W 5906 9mm's and I believe j frames, Model 66 for Nice Guy Eddie, and a Beretta Jetfire.
 
A kick-??? flick all the way! As some have already mentioned there is plenty of gun play but the level of acting and the dialog also kept me dialed in from start to finish. Gotta love Mr. Pink and his justification for being a cheap tipper at the diner. Classic film all the way.
 
Movie spoiler ahead ...

Reservoir Dogs is a fantastic movie, but I wouldn't call it a gun flic. For those who liked Reservoir Dogs, then "True Romance" is a must see also, (wicked gun fight near the end of TR).

Tarrantino Trivia Time

Did y'all notice that during the gunfight at the end of RD's that Chris Penn's character goes down without actually being shot? His squibb goes off but at no time did Harvey Keitel point his gun at him. This was a well know flaw that Tarrantino purposely left in the movie (as rumour has it).

Also, as for RD's being like "A ClockWork Orange", anyone else notice that the trailer for RD's was an exact copy of a scene from "ACWO"???
 
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