Reservoir Dogs

with Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi
Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino
by Margaret Smith

A gaggle of cheesy – looking gents in rumpled suits slouch around a vinyl booth in a greasy spooner. Between mouthfuls of cholesterol, they ponder the meaning of Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” and the fairness of tipping waitresses.

Now cut to one of the aforementioned gents (Harvey Keitel) speeding down a highway while another of the aforementioned gents (Tim Roth) lies in the back seat, bleeding an ocean from a bullet wound in the gut. The two exchange equal amounts of pleading, promises, and obscenities as Keitel spirits them away – not to an emergency room – to a dingy warehouse.

What happens in between comprises the rest of this consummate heist – gone – bad film with cleverly spliced flashbacks and foreshadowing already familiar to those who gushed over Pulp Fiction.

While Reservoir Dogs is not nearly as slick as Pulp Fiction, it’s just as packed with raw violence tempered with sweet, mundane dialogue and incongruous hilarity. Then, of course, noteworthy is the one scene which bestowed the film with cult status and which induces shudders in the viewer upon hearing the 1973 Gerry Rafferty hit “Stuck in the Middle with You.” This song, introduced in the film by a wonderfully droll voiceover by Steven Wright, is the backdrop to the most gruesome torture sequence in any modern film this hack has ever seen.

But if you can stomach that, you can get through the wondrous first effort by the filmmaker who revolutionized the gangster film in a way no one has since Public Enemy Number One.

For overall coolness, Reservoir Dogs is outranked only by Pulp Fiction, in all ways but one. Unlike Pulp Fiction, the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack is blessedly free of we – wanna – be – punk – so – bad – it – hurts – our – collective – spleen bands doing cheap renditions of songs which were perfectly good in the first place.