Reservoir Dogs

A heist film, and a narrative that never shows the heist. Six men are hired for a job. They do not know each other, do not know each other's names, and each is given a colour. The film opens over breakfast. Eight men at a table argue about a song and about tipping, and none of it has anything to do with the job. Then it cuts straight to afterwards. The robbery has gone wrong, two men are dead, one is shot in the stomach, and the survivors meet at a warehouse. From there the film takes place almost entirely in that warehouse. The question of who informed sits in the middle of the room and the characters accuse each other. There are flashbacks in between. How each man was hired is given as a separate chapter, and one chapter shows a policeman making himself learn a story by heart. What the narrative is interested in is not the robbery but trust: the film never shows the money, never shows the jewellery, and gets all its tension from six men not knowing each other. The well-known ear sequence plays out over a cheerful song on the radio, and the camera looks away during part of the violence. It was made on a small budget in a short schedule. Harvey Keitel came on as a producer after reading the script and got the film financed. It played at Sundance and became one of the productions that set the direction of American independent cinema in that period. Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn and Lawrence Tierney are in the cast. Quentin Tarantino wrote and directed; it was his first feature. Who it is for: anyone who likes crime films that run on dialogue. Who it is not for: anyone sensitive to violence; a few scenes are long and uncomfortable.