Reservoir Dogs
Even though I spent an important part of my youth in love with “Lord of the Rings”, I actually like things small. I lived in a 8sqm room for the longest time when I was a child, spending almost all my time in it, and besides small housings, I like small orchestras, small stages and, most of all, a small amount of characters in my stories. Chamber opera, orchestra, play – anything chamber – is totally up my alley, and Sartre’s “No Exit” was my favorite amongst all of them for quite awhile. As I watched “Reservoir Dogs” without knowing anything about it besides that it was an old Tarantino movie, I was elated to see that this was (mostly) a chamber story revolving around people talking.
Tarantino is definitely best at people talking, at least for me. I saw “Pulp Fiction” before I started this blog (probably in 2003 or 2004), and I loved every part that had people talking it, and hated every part that had people shooting or fighting or generally not talking. Despite liking most of Tarantino’s films, I definitely am not a fan of all that violence (or rather, I don’t care for it), but almost every time, there is a character so witty that he makes up for that action boredom. “Reservoir Dogs” is like all the good aspects of Tarantino, and almost none of the bad.
In fact, “Reservoir Dogs” is so talky that they were able to have a reading of the film with black actors. You couldn’t do that with “Kill Bill” for sure. With that said, I think the idea of bringing black actors doing the roles makes so much sense, because that’s what Tarantino totally should have done in the first place.
Of course “Reservoir Dogs” never provoked the emotional response that I had when I watched “Inglourious Basterds” (which is why the latter is in my top 30 films and “Reservoir Dogs” isn’t), but there is everything to love about the film: its amazing acting, its wonderfully witty dialogue, its absurd yet very human characters… and the fact that Tarantino didn’t have much money, giving the film its much needed focus on the people involved. (Heck, there is a reason why low-budget indie films become cult, because more often than not, money actually seems to distract from the good stuff.)
To be honest, I doubt Tarantino will ever make a movie as good as “Reservoir Dogs”, just like Polanski never made a movie as good as “Knife in the Water” (if you ask me), but the film is so good that I am totally fine with that.