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RESERVOIR DOGS (1992) (Special Edition)

10 years ago, Reservoir Dogs made a lot of noise and jump-started Quentin Tarantino's career. It's a very low budget film based on a paper-thin idea that Tarantino borrowed from the Hong Kong film, City on Fire and The Killing. * * * * * * * * * * *

It's the kind of a film a first-time film maker makes with very little money to tell the world he is a really good director, has a wonderful eye for faces, and in a Tarantino's case a great ear for dialogue as well (no pun intended-well maybe). He creates several unlikable recognizable character types (to play games on), lets them talk about pop culture and then moves them into a scenario where they stress out, confront each other, strike macho poses and things get violent. He utterly misappropriated some songs on the soundtrack making that work more effectively than you might ever imagine. Some good ideas, lots of unpleasantness, much ado about nothing, but you might like its in your face crackerjack style. On thing is for sure, few people sit on the fence regarding this film. You are either going to like it or hate it. I like it, don't love it, and don't need to constantly revisit it. It's an exercise in style, and a lot of it is loud, vulgar, and unpleasant. There's very little depth to the piece, and Tarantino was too young and inexperienced to create many layers in the film or to be particularly subtle. The pacing has weak spots and the film feels slightly padded and longer than it should be. * * * * * * * * * * *

You might say, the film is little more than an unrealistic sadistic, mean spirited exercise in machismo bullshit. There's enough humor present to let everyone know not to take any of it too seriously. If you have a fairly high tolerance for high testosterone charged stuff and aren't too squeamish, you'll enjoy it just fine. * * * * * * * * * * *

What you can take seriously is how effectively some sequences were put together. The opening scene in the coffee shop is the best mainly because the scene belongs Lawrence Tierney an actor so tough, and stubborn he's spent some time behind bars (for real) and scared the hell out of several fellow actors and directors. * * * * * * * * * * *

Tierney plays Joe, an experience master criminal who has gathered a group of crooks together to pull off a diamond heist. He gives everyone names of colors so no one has any idea who anyone else is. Mr. White, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), and so on. (For the truly obsessed collector this led to the idea of having various special DVD packages being released and you can buy each and everyone of them if you want). When Mr. Pink doesn't like his name, Tierney as Joe croaks: "You're lucky you ain't Mr. Yellow," There's a hilarious argument going on about a Madonna song and leaving a tip for a waitress. * * * * * * * * * * *

Michael Madsen delivers a first rate performance, as does Tim Roth. Harvey Keitel, Tierney, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi -- it's a great cast. I won't spoil it for you in the unlikely event you haven't see the film yet. It is worth seeing.. but perhaps only once. * * * * * *

The planned heist winds up being a disaster, some of the crooks are killed, some are shot, several of them wind up in the planned meeting place, a warehouse. Who can you trust? Can they get away? Is one of them a rat? Madsen's character is one sadistically deranged psycho and he's decided to torture a guy he believes is a cop. The use of the infectiously like-able Steeler's Wheel tune, Stuck in the Middle With You was used creating an extremely unsettling, unforgettable sequence. * * * * * * * * * * *

We don't gain any insight into the characters and have some empathy for two of them whose fates appear awfully grim. The film is told with the use of little snippets of flashback that show the audience the robbery went very wrong and lots of gun-shots were fired. * * * * * * * * * * *

Did I mention how derivative of films such as The Killing, Taking of Pellham One Two Three, The Anderson Tapes, City on Fire and several other films this one is? Tarantin reworked several ideas and added a few new ones to the mix. * * * * * * * * * * *

For this tenth anniversary special edition DVD the film was re-mastered into a 2.35:1 widescreen Anamorphic image. It's a vast improvement over the previously released Artisan disc. It does however look washed out, particularly in the opening titles sequence and some of the colors appear to off in some scenes. The film does look sharper and has less grain than in the past, but there's evident edge enhancement problems and more. Should have been much better. There is also a full screen transfer of the film (I didn't look at it) on the second disc of the package. * * * * * * * * * * *

The sound has been re-mixed and cleaned up beautifully and is presented in DTS , Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0 for the full frame version on the second disk. It's a dialogue driven movie, but on occasion music and some minor sound effects utilize the various channels effectively. * * * * * * * * * * *

Disc One includes a feature length commentary and also several additional interviews which include: An Interview in the Back of a Truck with Chris Penn (under 7 minutes); The Kirk Balz Interrogation which takes place in a warehouse similar to the one in the film (under 7 minutes),; An Afternoon with Michael Madsen which finds the actor at home surrounded by kids (over 11 minutes); Lawrence Bender, the producer talks for a little over 6minutes; and there is Poolside with Tim Roth for about 9 minutes; and the more than 14 minute A Tale of Tarantino. * * * * * * * * * * *

There are also deleted scenes on the disc, some of them adding a bit of background and depth to the characters. One of the scenes even lines up with Pulp Fiction very well. There's also the film's original theatrical trailer. * * * * * * * * * * *

On Disc 2 there are several extra features of interest. Tributes and Dedications runs over ten minutes as Tarantino discusses the seven men he wanted to dedicate the film to. "One Big Teddy Bear: A Tribute to Lawrence Tierney" is an under 15 minute tribute Tierney featuring some wild comments from Film Threat's Chris Gore, Tarantino, Madsen, Roth, Penn, and Eddie Bunker and we also see outtakes and movie clips. * * * * * * * * * * *

In "Eddie Bunker in the Good, the Bad and the Bunker": Bunker rides around in a pick up truck discussing his previous life of crime and an amusing story about fighting with Tierney in the 1950's. * * * * * * * * * * *

"The Reservoir Dogs Tributes" is Tarantino giving hugs to his favorites with a series of short clips about filmmakers Monte Hellman (4:45), Jack Hill (5:50), and Roger Corman (5:00) and actress Pam Grier (2:20). Most talk about their carreers while Grier talks about Reservoir Dogs. * * * * * * * * * * *

The Film Noir Web goes into a lot of information about the genre. First you get an eight-minute and a half minute featurette that has sound bites from people like author Robert Polito, and Donald Westlake, and directors John Boorman, Mike Hodges and Stephen Frears. * * * * * * * * * * *

The "Noir Files" offers lots of text information including: "Dave's Handy Guide to the Big 3", "How to Handle a Gun", "Characters and Actors", "Books and Film", and "Writers and Directors", the features overlap and interact with each other. There's a lot of information about the noir genre to be found here. * * * * * * * * * * *

You'll also find critic commentaries. Three critics talk about different aspects of the film as scenes play in the back ground. Amy Taubin who has written for Film Comment and wrote a book about Taxi Driver talks about Tim Roth for about 23 minutes. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone talks about the film, its song selection and it's history at the Sundance Film Festival. Emanuel Levy, a writer, teacher and former Variety critic, talks about Tarantino's structure and his obsession with violence. * * * * * * * * * * *

K-Billy Radio features three audio interviews (1. with Samson Beck; 2 with Gerry Rafferty about his sone Stuck in the Middle with You; 3 outakes from Steven Wright's DJ voice overs) and a re-enactment of the film's most famous scene with the Reservoir Dogs action figures. * * * * * * * * * * *

Sundance Class of '92 is a 30 minute documentary about several directors whose films were shown at Sundancei 92 including Tarantino, Tom Kalin of Swoon, Alex Rockwell of In the Soup, Chris Much of The Hours and Times and Kate Shae director of Poison Ivy. * * * * * * * * * * *

There are also clips of performances from Reservoir Dogs's 1991 Sundance Film Lab workshops, with performances by Buscemi and Tarantino. * * * * * * * * * * *

Securing the Shot is an under five minute look at the film's locations with location scout Billy Fox. * * * * * * * * * * *

Small Dogs is a commercial for Reservoir Dogs merchandise. * * * * * * * * * * *

The Poster Gallery includes all of three posters.

Reservoir Dogs is a movie made by a show off. It's got style to spare but there's little substance to anything that is here. It's an interesting, entertaining film if you have a fairly strong stomach. It's got decent performances-but don't expect subtlety. Unfortunately, the film's style and attitude was imitated by dozens of other terrible films. Even though the extra's shine brightly, it's still not a DVD I feel I need to own. This was Tarantino's film grammar school. He graduated film high school with Pulp Fiction (worth having) and made an even better film graduating film college with Jackie Brown (definitely worth owning). If you're a big fan of the film, you'll be a little disappointed that the transfer quality is somewhat lacking visually, but you'll be very pleased with the extras. * * * * * * * * * * *

Christopher J. Jarmick, is the author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder a critically acclaimed, steamy suspense thriller. He is also Vice President of P.E.N. Washington .

Original portions of this review Copyright© Christopher J. Jarmick 2002. The above work is protected by international copyright law All rights reserved.