Reservoir Dogs (1992) is not your the loot and getting away, not typical heist film. Yes, it features what’s right and what’s wrong. Is a ragtag assemblage of bad guys it Orange? He’s the cop. He’s the working together to pull off a big character risking his neck in the effective way than the flash-bang of Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), job. Some of these bad guys are lion’s den. But, he’s also deceiv- of the heist itself ever would have Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn) and bad with just a twinge of good; ing Mr. White, a character who achieved. In more traditional Joe (Lawrence Tierney). others are bad, while riddled seems to be trying to do right by heist films, a scene of a character with selfish pragmatism; and still Where the audience becomes someone in a unique set of cir- going on what might be classi- others are simply bad to the core. emotionally entangled is in cumstances. Is Mr. White the good fied as “a killing spree” would be Yes, the film has a big boss who deciding whether or not we want guy? He did some pretty terrible considered an exciting piece of all the bad guys fear and respect Mr. Orange’s undercover ruse to things throughout the film, and cinema. After all, what kind of for any number of reasons that be discovered or if we want the we can assume even worse things sicko doesn’t love drooling over don’t need to be explained for good guy to prevail in the end. prior to it. Just by being a willing a high-octane, blood-and-guts the audience to understand. Yes, killing spree? But, in Reservoir It’s a tough call. Orange is sup- participant in the heist, he comes it has a chase scene. Yes, it has a Dogs, Tarantino makes the spree posed to be our hero, flawed across as a bad guy, but he’s not a heist. But, what makes Quentin a mere point of discussion. The though his character may be. nihilist, like Mr. Blonde, and he’s Tarantino’s early ’90s foray into film skips over the cheap, easy This is a guy entrenched behind certainly not a pragmatist, like the world of heist cinema unique action of a killing spree, opt- enemy lines — undercover among Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi). is that nowhere in the film do we a pack of career criminals. At ing instead to capitalize on the Consider what audiences back in actually see the heist take place. the same time, we sympathize emotional intensity of the char- 1992 might have thought watch- We see before the heist, then a with characters like Mr. White, acters themselves, mounting the ing a film called Reservoir Dogs scene from after, then we jump who’s putting his own life and tension and telling the story one by an unknown director for the back to way before the heist, reputation on the line by so line of dialogue at a time. first time. Maybe you were one of then we see a character try- vehemently defending Orange those lucky viewers who saw the ing to escape, then back story, This tension is what draws the from the suspicion of the rest of film before Pulp Fiction (1994) then post-heist, then back and viewer toward Mr. Orange’s (Tim the bad guys. We know White is or Inglorious Basterds (2009). forth, and so on. By the time Roth’s) critical last words, whis- wrong about Orange, but we also When guns are drawn in the final our surviving main characters pered to his deceived friend Mr. know, although White is a bad scene, did the 1992 audience have their guns aimed at one White (Harvey Keitel): “I’m a guy in this story, he’s protecting know it was the end for all four another, we know all about the cop, Larry.” Of course, we knew Orange for all the right reasons. Orange was a cop by only a few characters? Did they expect Mr. heist without catching a single So, we sympathize. minutes into the film. What Orange’s deathbed revelation and glimpse of the crime itself. helps build the tension for the In the film’s final scene, when resulting execution? For those of Despite what may seem like an audience is White’s insistence Joe pulls a gun on Orange, White us not lucky enough to have seen odd way to tell a story like this Orange isn’t a cop that leads to pulls a gun on Joe and Eddie Reservoir Dogs during its origi- one, the brilliance of Tarantino’s many of the film’s chaotic and pulls a gun on White, who’s the nal theatrical run, we can only storytelling in his debut film ill-informed post-heist decisions. good guy? We can assume it’s guess. Today, we know a Taran- comes from his signature style of White’s ignorance of what would not Joe or Eddie. They’re not tino film without a healthy dose dramatizing the events surround- become Orange’s dying declara- central enough to the story, and of emotive bloodshed wouldn’t be ing the main event in a more tion is what leads to the deaths their main concerns are finding a Tarantino film at all.

36 PARACINEMA #12 / JUNE 2011