Harvey Keitel

Tim Roth

Michael Madsen

Chris Penn

Steve Buscemi

Lawrence Tierney

Randy Brooks

Kirk Baltz

Edward Bunker

Quentin Tarantino

Rich Turner

David Steen

Tony Cosmo

Stevo Polyi

Michael Sottile

Robert Ruth

Lawrence Bender

Linda Kaye

Suzanne Celeste

Steven Wright

Laurie Lathem

Maria Strova

Burr Steers

Craig Hamann

Rowland Wafford

Scott McElroy

Ronna B. Wallace

Paul Hellerman

Sally Menke

Sandy Reynolds-Wasco

Stephen DeLollis

Larry Fioritto

Andrzej Sekula

Ronnie Yeskel

Betsy Heimann

Richard N. Gladstein

David Wasco

Rick Yale

Monte Hellman

Karyn Rachtman

Jennifer Pyken

Jonathan R. Hodges

Bruce Comtois

Rachel Tanner

David Coffee

Melanie Molyneux

Ken Lesco

Martin Kitrosser

Ross Katz

Marian Green

Enid L. Kantor

Brett C. Smith

Warren Betts

Chuck Winston

Kelley Dixon

Wayne Alexander

Ben C. Giller

Stephen Hunter Flick

Mark Emery Moore

James Lowder

Ziad Doueiri

Greg R. McCullough

Ken Segal

Roger Avary

Peggy Kennedy

Billy A. Fox

Steve F.B. Smith

Mary Claire Hannan

John Hulsman

Jacqueline Aronson

Marina Bailey

Dwayne S. Henkel

Curt Schulkey

Marino Pascal

Michelle Bühler

Ric Urbauer

Iain Jones

Jamie Beardsley

R. Blaine Currier

John Lieberman

Jeannie H. Kelly

Jay Dahlquist

Joey D. Brown

Francis R. Mahony III

Steven K. Thomas

Ron Bartlett

Charles Ewing Smith

Geoffrey G. Rubay

David E. Stone

Kelly Kiernan

Judith E. Goldman

Cecilia Perna

Randall Guth

Mark Lass

Dennis K. Wilson

Pat Domenico

Andy Spilkoman

Nancy Lynn Hurlbut

Dink Adams

Mary Santiago

Jonathan Bobbitt

Debra Grieco

Mary Louise Rodgers

Wendy Baker

Robert John Speer

Ken Kaufman

Wayne Toth

Howard Berger

Edward J. Protiva

Greg Wilkinson

Michael Salvetta

Donald Ortiz

Moose Enright

Dave Gregory

Marcia Holley

Pat McGroarty

Katie Nilson

Chris J. Rossi

Alan Sherrod

Crime

Thriller

Reservoir Dogs

Live Entertainment

Dog Eat Dog Productions

United States of America

English

escape

jewelry

psychopath

traitor

heist

thief

betrayal

plan gone wrong

gang

nonlinear timeline

warehouse

told in flashback

heist gone wrong

botched robbery

foreshadowing

rendezvous

iconic

uneasy alliance

rag tag group

based on short

This unique take on the heist-film-gone-wrong was excellent--stylish and intelligently made, yet very funny and inexpensive. Tarantino's accolades from giving American cinema the resuscitation it needed mirrors what has happened, at least since the 70's, with Martin Scorsese's 'Mean Streets', both in terms of entertaining violence and usage of music in the scoring of films. I greatly thank Harvey Keitel for taking a chance on Tarantino back then--It paid off in spades.

The cuss-oriented squabbles of lowlife crooks for 99 minutes (and no women)
	
RELEASED IN 1992 and written/directed by Quentin Tarantino, "Reservoir Dogs” is a crime drama/thriller about a diamond heist gone disastrously wrong in Los Angeles wherein the surviving thugs bicker back-and-forth in a warehouse about which of their members is a police informant. The main thieves are played by Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen and Chris Penn while Lawrence Tierney appears as the old salt mastermind.

This was Tarantino’s first feature film, costing only $1,200,000, and it has quirky glimmerings of future greatness, as seen in “Pulp Fiction” (1994), “Jackie Brown” (1997), “Kill Bill” (2003/2004), “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) and “Django Unchained” (2012), but “Reservoir” didn’t work for me. It’s hampered by a low-budget vibe, which I can handle, but not the uninteresting lowlife characters, their self-made conundrum, their interminably dull dialogue and the one-dimensional setting where about 80% of the story takes place in an old warehouse, not to mention no females in the main cast.

Still, it’s interesting to observe Tarantino’s first serious stab at filmmaking and it has its moments of genuine entertainment. It’s a lesson on humble beginnings, which shows potential while not being up to snuff.

THE FILM RUNS 1 hour, 39 minutes and was shot in Los Angeles & Burbank.

GRADE: C-

CinemaSerf

Nope, I didn't get the memo... After a jewellery heist goes wrong and the escaping funeral-attired hoodlums kill a couple of cops and one gets gut-shot in a car-jacking, they return to their hideout where they turn on each other with expletive-ridden venom. What now ensues is a recreation of the planning and execution of their raid, their introductions to each other and that all lays the seeds for this over-rated drama of brutal mistrust and duplicity. Tim Roth probably stands out as "Mr. Orange" but the rest of the fairly well established cast offer us little by way of sophistication or subtlety as they try to decide which - if any of them - informed the police. It's violent but so what - it's not Scorsese, nor does the story really hold up after it becomes glaringly obvious what is actually going to happen at the end. Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut has shock value, certainly, but I'm afraid I found the whole thing really quite dull. Sorry - but there's more to good writing and characterisation that loads of effing, jeffing, charm-free thuggery and bullets. Not for me!

I don't get it. Feels like nothing happens the whole film. Cool to see Buscemi in this though, I didn't realize he was in such an early one of Tarantino's films.

TIFF Press Conference

Official Park Circus Trailer

Opening Credits

Reservoir Dogs( 1992)

Every dog has his day.

Overview

Top Billed Cast

Social

A review by talisencrw

Written by talisencrw on Sat May 14 2016

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