Reservoir Dogs: A Peek into the Paranoid Life of Criminals – Editorial

Premise: Reservoir Dogs (1992) is a movie about a bunch of robbers that pull off a diamond heist. The movie was the first for the director Quentin Tarantino who later went on to make many memorable blockbusters filled with great dialogue. Reservoir Dogs focuses on the before and aftermath of the crime, unlike most of the movies from the genre. The story features planners (Joe Cabot) and his capable son (Eddie Cabot) with five guys that execute the said plan. With some of the finest dialogues written for a movie, combined with a great cast, Reservoir Dogs has been said to be the Best Screenplay Tarantino ever wrote.

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Story: The movie starts with a bunch of suited-up guys having breakfast in a diner talking about nothing. Throughout the film, no matter what conversation happens on screen, it seems irrelevant to what’s going to happen next. One second they talk about how waitresses who deserve tips and the next scene showcases a guy in the back seat of a car with a gutshot wound.

There’s no robbery scene in the movie. We just know that things went horribly wrong, and a panicked Mr.Blonde (one of the robbers) killed a few civilians including a 20-year-old. All this information was never shown on screen. It was hidden in the conversations that the paranoid robbers have after they rendezvous at the warehouse according to their plan. Even the cop-killing robbers feel that there are some lines they don’t cross like any civilian casualties, but, Mr Blonde scares them because he’s a loose cannon. It’s because of these (un)interesting conversations, we know that Mr Blonde is crazy before he tortures the cop he took hostage at the robbery scene.

Tarantino shows the paranoid lives of criminals in this movie, especially when nobody trusts anybody. This movie has more rat talk than an Italian gangster movie. From absurd scenes like criminals trying to be professionals to Mr.Blonde torturing a cop by cutting his ear off while listening to his favorite radio station…. this movie got it all. The one-stop-shop for any criminal character and how they behave when something goes wrong with the plan they hatch to break the law.

In the end, everybody in the team dies except for Mr Pink who might have been caught by the police. Or he is the only one to tell the tale and live off the diamonds they’ve stolen. All it takes is one rat to bring down a team of professional criminals. Hollywood is hung up on rats. From Jack Nicholson in The Departed to Goodfellas, crime movies are fueled by the story of the rats. Nothing is lower than a rat in the criminal world. And that proves to be the case in this movie as well. When Mr Orange confesses in the end that he was the rat all along, Mr White who kills his old pal and his son while defending Mr Orange’s innocence kills Mr Orange himself.

Insight: Tarantino mastered the way of showing violence in a spectacularly entertaining way. Sometimes he shows a group of Americans collecting scalps in Nazi France, sometimes he shows a black guy’s skull exploding in the back of a car accident. Still, I feel like there are no bad guys in any Quentin Tarantino movies. There are characters, and there are things the characters do. Some things feel right, some feel awful. All are nonetheless gruesome. Every character plays their role to make the movie entertaining. Be that the Bible-quoting assassin in Pulp Fiction or the slave-trading plantation owner in Django Unchained. Bad guys… it’s just a relative term for Tarantino. And maybe that’s how it should be, judging by the critically successful movies he made after Reservoir Dogs.

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Suhel Abdulla

Another Engineer this world wanted but never needed. I was surrounded my whole life by the three most successful religions in the whole world. I was born a Muslim, grew up around Hindus and my School Teachers were Christians. I won’t assume, I won’t blame and I won’t shame. I listen, I understand and I write. I don’t have any complaints, just concerns. I'm curious enough to learn from the past, care for the present and hope for the future. I love Freedom of speech and writing keeps me free.

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