Reservoir Dogs

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

A major theme in Reservoir Dogs (1992) revolves around trust (and its betrayal), loyalty, selfishness, and whether humane behavior can exist, even among criminals. (The title of the film, suggested by IMDb, may come from someone misunderstanding the title of Louis Malle’s Au Revoir les Enfants. Or, it could be a term for unsolicited scripts).

 Before the credits, there is an extended opening scene where there are several men around a dinner table at a restaurant talking about Madonna’s song, “Like a Virgin.” Many of them wear jackets and ties, as if they are at a business meal. We don’t realize until afterwards that this social gathering conceals the fact that they are part of a planned robbery. Director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino’s first film sets a style that he repeats in his later works by having people in extreme situations carrying on extraneous conversations. He said in an interview that he takes stereotypical genre characters and rounds them out by having them talk like real people about subjects other than the plot. What he adds is a comic flair to the dialogue, and he said, “Outrageous stuff rings the most true,” and dark stuff can be funny.  His writing ranges from the crude to the philosophical. We start out with the former here as Mr. Brown (Tarantino) sees the song as purely sexual while another man, Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) says it’s about a woman who has been misused by men in the past. (The use of colors to keep identities anonymous in a criminal act was employed earlier in The Taking of Pelham, 1,2,3.) Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney), the person organizing the heist, says he prefers Madonna’s earlier work. Through this process, Tarantino creates distinct characters by what they say and do.

 

The camera rotates around the table to show all the participants and keeps the angle at chair level, making the audience feel as if they are part of the gang. Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) is annoyed by Joe’s droning on about an old address book and grabs it away from him. Joe is quickly portrayed as the elderly, stubborn guy who wants things to go his way. As he later says, it’s “my way or the highway.” Joe shows he’s ticked off by telling Mr. Blonde to shoot White. Blonde jokingly makes his hand look like a gun and pretends to shoot White. White shows his tough comic sense when he says, “You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.” Blonde’s sensitive take on the Madonna song and his humor here hides the evil that we see in the man later in the story. His blonde name denotes something attractive, but here its use is ironic. “Nice Guy” Eddie (Chris Penn), who is Joe's son and is not nice at all, talks about hearing golden oldies on a radio program, K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ’70’s. (Tarantino is already thinking about making his Kill Bill movies which he hints at with the program name. In fact, Blonde’s real name is Vic Vega, and Tarantino was going to make a prequel to this film and Pulp Fiction, about the Vega brothers with Madsen and John Travolta. Tarantino thinks like a novelist who writes sprawling sagas). 

 Joe says he’ll pick up the tab but the rest should leave the tip, which is only a dollar each. Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) says he doesn’t believe in tips because he shouldn’t be forced by society to automatically leave extra money unless extra effort is shown. Joe makes him throw in the tip because he paid for the meal, showing his need for control over the actions of others. Pink’s stinginess points to his selfish actions later and his aversion to cooperate with rules in general. Eddie criticizes Pink’s attitude by using a Jewish racial stereotype. (Tarantino has been attacked for using the “n” word often as well as other racial slurs, and his inclusion of prolific profanity. Indeed, if one is sensitive to this usage, Tarantino is not the filmmaker for you. Those who defend his content argue that it is a realistic depiction of the characters in the stories). White doesn’t go along with the good-natured teasing of Pink, and he is seriously critical of Pink’s lack of empathy for the poorly paid waitresses. Could he be named White because out of this bunch of criminals he has a code of ethics he wants to cling to? It is interesting that Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) has his arm resting on White’s chair, and attentively listens to what the man says. This fact points to the closeness of the relationship the two later share, and the hidden truth that threatens their bond. 

 Tarantino’s narratives are not linear. His jumbled timelines are infuriating for some, but he relies on the audience’s mental ability to figure out what is happening. Also, the out-of-sequence form of storytelling generates interest as one must actively participate in fitting the pieces of the tale together. So, right after the credits we have Orange in the back of a car writhing in agony after being shot. There is blood smeared on the seat while a supportive White tries to offer hope. He holds Orange’s hand, which literally and figuratively shows the connection between the two. Even though the scene is emotionally fraught, White is still able to be funny as he tells the pessimistic Orange that he didn’t know the wounded man had a medical degree, so how does he know he is going to die? 

 They go back to the “rendezvous point,” which is an abandoned warehouse. White holds Orange like a nurturing parent and assures him that Joe will get the man a doctor. Orange wants to be held and despite the macho posturing the men displayed earlier, White is compassionate enough to show some tenderness and complies with the request. White even whispers something that makes the bleeding Orange laugh. White takes a comb and runs it through Orange’s hair, which is both sweet and ridiculous given the bloody circumstances. Despite caring about Orange he says he can’t drop the man at the hospital. Orange pleads to be left outside of the medical facility and swears that he will not divulge any information. Loyalty and trust are at issue here, but the irony is that Orange is really an undercover cop. So, he is lying and will probably betray the man who is showing concern for him. White wants to avoid the authorities getting involved and assures Orange that being shot in the gut is very painful but it takes a long time to die from that type of wound. 

Pink shows up and believes they were set up since the police secretly appeared in force to upset their plans. (The robbery isn’t shown since the emphasis is on the characters, not the plot to steal from a jeweler). White says the police killed Brown. White and Pink go into the adjoining bathroom and try to recreate what happened. But just like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, there are differing accounts of the same crime based on subjective impressions and motivations. When Pink asks if he killed anybody, White says just cops, whom Pink classifies as “no real people.” Pink’s callousness comes through here as he sees the police as allowable targets since they are paid to stop men like him, and he dehumanizes them to justify them as targets. White says the police showed up when the alarm was tripped. Pink says the cops didn’t let their presence be known until Blonde started shooting. We have here evidence of Blonde’s lethal capacity. White asks, perhaps suspiciously, how Pink was able to escape. The idea of mistrust was planted and starts to grow. Pink says he blasted his way out, and there is a short recreation of Pink running at full speed near people on a sidewalk with the bag of diamonds in his hand and cops chasing him. He shoots some of the officers as he drags a woman out of her car and uses the vehicle to escape. This successful carjacking contrasts with the disastrous one that is dramatized later. Tarantino does not have long action sequences here. He instead expends time on interactions between characters. 

 

Both men agree that Blonde acted like a maniac, shooting everywhere, not just for protection. (IMDb notes that there is a small yellow sink next to White, which suggests Blonde is still alive, but it may just indicate that he is the subject of their discussion). White is upset, showing his emotional side, when he notes that Blonde killed a young black girl, supposedly an innocent bystander. He goes on to call Blonde a psychopath, which is unexpected considering how easygoing Blonde was at the restaurant. The two men make the distinction between the indiscriminate way Blonde acted and the need for necessary professional violence. They feel that criminal actions must be proportional, which seems a rationalization since once entering a potentially dangerous situation there is the strong possibility for lethal outcomes. White now washes up and combs his own hair, implying that he is trying to pull himself together as he did with Orange. They wonder what happened to Blonde and Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), and White is thinking about what happened to the diamonds, which again displays suspicion about his comrades. But Pink is honest here and reveals that he has the diamonds. However, he suggests that he and White take the diamonds since the deal about sharing is “null and void” once there is a “rat” involved as they can’t trust anyone now. Even though he was once betrayed by an undercover cop in a robbery, White sticks to the idea that there should be honor among thieves and rejects Pink’s cynical feelings about everybody. When Pink considers that Orange is the informant, it is ironic that the uninformed White comes to the bleeding man’s defense. Pink says about being a snitch, “I can say I definitely didn’t do it because I know what I did or didn’t do. But I cannot definitely say that about anybody else ‘cause I don’t definitely know.” Loyalty and the trust on which it is based, along with a sense of certainty, melt away once the threat to the individual is present, and then one retreats to the fortress of the self.

 There is a brief flashback entitled “Mr. White,” where Joe informs White of the details of the robbery which is high risk because it is during the day when there are many people around. White knew someone who could fence the stolen gems, but he is now serving twenty years because of “bad luck.” The assumption is that no matter how well planned a heist is, something can go wrong. When it comes to illegal actions individuals are fighting against the rules of society, which is a formidable obstacle. 

 

Back at the warehouse, White confirms that the unconscious Orange is still alive. White says that Joe could get Orange to a doctor, but the dubious Pink isn’t sure they can trust Joe since he hasn’t shown up yet. That feeling of betrayal is now a constant presence. White admits that Orange was shot because of him, and he is feeling guilty. He tells Pink that the wounded man begged to go to a hospital. Pink is ready to go along with dropping Orange off for medical attention until he learns that White revealed his first name (Larry) and where he is from to Orange. That human connection interferes with antisocial unlawful activity. Because White has a criminal record, Pink says that the cops could narrow down what suspects to show Orange, who could identify him. Pink’s attitude is survival is the number one priority which leaves little room for helping another. He echoes White’s statement earlier which is that some people are “lucky” and some aren’t, which relinquishes the individual from responsibility as to outcomes. White is not willing to accept that attitude now because he feels responsible for the wounded man, and reacts by attacking Pink for the same callousness he himself showed earlier. In effect, he has projected the anger he feels for himself onto Pink. The two pull guns on each other and Pink is logical in his self-preservation argument, as opposed to White’s emotional response, as he tells White once Orange compromises White, then that is one step closer to Pink being caught.

Blonde appears during this confrontation, and he is as cold as the ice in his drink that he had the composure to buy during this episode that would rattle the average human. He echoes Joe’s assessment of the juvenile way that the other two men are acting when he says, “You kids shouldn’t play so rough. Somebody’s gonna start cryin.’” Pink and White have the smell of a rat lodged in their nostrils and demand to know what happened to Blonde and Blue. Blonde’s response to their suggestion about getting out of the possibly compromised warehouse is to order that nobody is leaving. He talked to Eddie who said to stay put and he was coming to the rendezvous point. Blonde is dedicated to Joe and Eddie, so even a psychopath can show allegiance. Blonde’s scary calm contrasts with White’s ranting about Blonde’s bloodbath at the jewelry store. Blonde is quietly menacing when he says to White, “Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite.” Pink stops them from fighting and says he absolutely knows that Blonde is not an undercover guy for the police because he’s too “homicidal to be workin’ with the cops.” When on the other side of the law, extreme violence strangely reassures loyalty. Blonde laughs and says that his heart was beating fast as if he enjoyed getting excited about a confrontation with White, and attributes their behavior to being fans of actor Lee Marvin. Is Tarantino revealing the influence of another actor’s roles on his movie, or maybe he is also stressing that these are actors pretending to be violent as did other performers before them. 

 

Blonde has a surprise for Pink and White in the trunk of his car which turns out to be a police officer named Nash (Kirk Baltz) who he grabbed to shield his escape. We get a shot outward from inside the storage area of the vehicle which puts us in the position of being a captive in the director's movie, just like the cop Blonde has captured. The men laugh at the “not real” person that has been caught like a hunted animal. They seem to relish in defeating the representative of law and order. Blonde says that they can interrogate the policeman to get information about the “rat.”

 The next flashback is labeled “Mr. Blonde.” Joe is in his office and there are elephant tusks on either side of his desk. The image suggests primal masculinity that promotes dominance through force over other living creatures. On the phone he makes a reference to J. P. Morgan about overcoming adversity, which associates survival of the fittest in the animal world with what happens in big business. He is told that Vic Vega has arrived, who we do not see at first, and when Joe tells his associate to have Vic come in, the employee looks over his shoulder and says to the camera, “Come on in.” It is Tarantino inviting the audience into this world he has created, and identifies us as possible criminals, a Hitchcockian technique. Vic has just been released from prison and is very grateful for the packages Joe sent him while inside. Joe is grateful that Vic took the conviction connected to a previous job and never implicated Joe. This fact shows Vic’s loyalty to the criminal boss. Vic’s parole officer is tough on him and Joe makes a racist comment about how African American ex-convicts are treated better, an argument impossible to make outside of his office. Eddie shows up and Vic teases him about how his father said the son was ruining the business. The two wrestle like little boys and Joe, the stern father, makes them stop, after which Eddie makes homophobic remarks. We have overcompensating testosterone on display. Eddie tells Vic that they can get him a job as a dock worker where he will just be on the payroll, make money, and not have to work, and that way get his parole officer off his back. Again, Vic is grateful to the Cabots and can’t wait to do some jobs that aren’t on the up and up. Eddie convinces his dad to add Vic to the list of men to rob the jewelry store. Illegitimate business can seem attractive because of how it removes problems most have to deal with every day and score large amounts of money, but there can be a price to pay, as we are seeing, when those “jobs” go sideways. 

 The anger and frustration of a robbery that became deadly erupts as Pink and White beat up the captured cop back at the warehouse. Blonde secures him to a chair with duct tape. The scene is intercut with Eddie channeling the exasperation with the chaos that the robbers have precipitated as he says on the car phone that he doesn’t know who is dead, who is arrested, and where the diamonds are. Eddie is echoing Pink’s lack of certainty about anything, which reminds us of what happens to those best laid plans. When Eddie arrives at the warehouse everyone shouts out grievances and accusations. Again, the only calm one is Blonde, who says he shot the jewelry store staff for tripping the alarm. While Eddie wants the diamonds, White wants to make sure Orange is taken care of, which shows the different priorities of the two men. 

 Eddie decides that he, Pink and White must get rid of the stolen cars in the lot and travel to where Pink stashed the stolen goods. Eddie leaves Blonde to babysit the cop. Bad idea. Blonde’s sadism surfaces in what follows, which is not for the squeamish. He admits that he isn’t interested in information, but instead thinks it’s “amusing” for him “to torture a cop,” and will not give him the mercy of a quick death. He plays the song “Stuck in the Middle,” and dances to it, contrasting light entertainment with torture, thus accentuating the atrocities in which he is engaged. He cuts off Nash’s right ear with a straight razor as the camera pans to the message over an archway which reads, “Watch your head,” which is funny but definitely sick. The song’s lyrics talk basically about being caught between a rock and a hard place, which is where these characters exist given their actions. Actor Madsen, who was reluctant to do this grisly scene, improvised talking into the severed ear, a bit of very dark humor. (Blonde’s mixture of song and dance with violence may remind one of Malcolm McDowell’s scene in A Clockwork Orange where he commits an act of “ultraviolence” while performing “Singin’ in the Rain”). 

 

Blonde’s depraved sense of humor is also seen as he first pretends to act like he will use the razor to shave himself instead of using the instrument on the man, and also when he tells the bound and gagged cop to not go anywhere as he goes to his car for some gasoline. The camera follows him. There is no music and children are heard as Tarantino shows us how just outside the chamber of horrors, peaceful, everyday life goes on, unaware of the hidden atrocities that are taking place right under society’s collective noses. Blonde throws gasoline onto the groaning, suffering policeman. He pours a stream of gasoline that he is ready to light that will travel to the cop and ignite the man. But Orange wakes up and empties a clip of bullets into Blonde, killing him. Nash knows that Orange, whose real name is Freddy, is a cop (which is when the audience first discovers that Orange is undercover) because they met several months prior. Yet, the brutalized policeman courageously did not divulge Orange’s identity, which reminds us of Blonde not informing on Joe. Loyalty is thus shown on both sides of the law. Orange says that the cops are close by waiting for Joe to show up so they can arrest the big shot crook. Nash is incensed that he is sitting there beaten and mutilated while waiting for the arrival of the police. Nash must be wondering at this point whether his trust was misplaced. Orange yells back at him, saying the two have to sit it out. Perhaps the police are also being portrayed as cruel here for not coming sooner to help their comrades.

The next flashback segment is entitled “Mr. Orange.” The scene is a diner where Orange meets with his police handler, Holdaway (Randy Brooks), and tells him that he had a meeting with Joe and a Mr. White, who likes the Milwaukee Brewers. So, they assume White is from Wisconsin and Holdaway can narrow in on armed robbers who come from Wisconsin so that Orange might be able to identify who White is. Orange says something complimentary about a source named Long Beach Mike, but Holdaway tells Orange to not admire a “scumbag” who sells out his comrades. It is revealing here that Orange has positive feelings for a criminal, which shows he can exist in areas of gray where the lines between the legal and the illegal blur. Also, Holdaway is using Long Beach Mike for information but at the same time has contempt for his cooperation. Yet, he wants Orange to establish trust and then betray it. Many contradictions are revealed here in just a few words of dialogue. 

 On the roof of the building, where they can have privacy, Holdaway wants Orange to memorize “the commode story,” which is a fake “amusing anecdote about a drug dealer” that Orange will pretend actually happened to him. It is a quirky and exact tale that will ingratiate Orange into the company of the other criminals who will buy into Orange’s phony criminal past. Tarantino, through Holdaway, tells us about acting and writing here. Holdaway says an undercover cop has to be “Marlon Brando” to be convincing. He says the covert policeman must be “naturalistic,” which means conveying reality to the extreme. That also means that the writing must be detailed, so a screenplay written for such a story must provide that type of exactness. So, as Holdaway says, the person telling the story must know what the bathroom smells like, what type of soap is there, if a stall has a missing door, if there is a blower or paper towels, etc. He says, “it’s the details that sell the story,” which must be personalized. So, Tarantino gives us the actor, Tim Roth, learning his lines for his role as a cop who is preparing to act as another character he is playing, Mr. Orange. 

 

We then shift to Orange telling the story to White, Eddie, and Joe at a club. We then have the dramatization of Orange’s tale, a scene within a scene, both imaginary, since, after all, we are watching a piece of fiction. The drug-carrying Orange goes into a public bathroom where there are four cops with a German Shepherd, who barks at Orange, implying he is a felon. One of the cops is telling a story. That part mirrors what Orange, the crook, is doing, linking a type of behavior between the law enforcer and the law breaker, showing that underneath they have similar traits. The cop’s story could be a fake, too, which of course it is, because it is part of the staged scene. Orange says that despite the precariousness of the situation, he has the courage to make the air dryer drown out the policeman’s story, thus metaphorically, giving the finger to the cops. That bit of defiant coolness under pressure wins over his audience. We have here a specific rendition of how art must imitate life to be believed, and thus, be meaningful for the audience. 

 Before riding with White, Eddie and Pink, Orange looks at himself in his apartment mirror attempting to convince himself that he is that cool crook which will prevent him from getting hurt. We know that no matter how much preparation there is, one can’t control all the possibilities of how things can go wrong. The men talk about 1970’s Pam Grier movies (she later stars in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. This type of dialogue about pop culture becomes a signature of what crooks discuss in the director’s films, reflecting Tarantino’s interests, and also developing the characters). We again have racist, crude comical stories and comments from Pink, Eddie and White, which are offensive but believable given the white criminals depicted. 

 The laughter of the men contrasts with the next scene which is another flashback of the stern, Joe reprimanding his crew for their adolescent behavior. He has a blackboard drawing of the crime plan and the scene reminds one of an older teacher trying to control and instruct his students. He assigns them their colorful names, and Pink complains like a disagreeable child about his designated shade. Joe insists that the only topic his gang can discuss, so that nobody can inform on another, is each person’s part of the job. Afterwards, White and Orange do just that, as Orange recites all of the steps of the burglary. He listens to White giving him pointers on how to deal with any resistance from customers or workers, and there is a smile on Orange’s face as he appreciates White’s experience. Orange must be deceitful by lying about who he is, but his dishonesty is in the service of the law. However, he is made to participate in a robbery, so he becomes part of a criminal act. Because he is “caught in the middle,” as the song says, he later finds it difficult to betray the trust he has established with Mr. White. 

 

There is a jump forward where Brown, who was shot, crashes the car he is driving with Orange and White onboard, and dies soon after. Orange helplessly, and in shock, watches as White, the man who has become his mentor, brutally shoots two policemen in a cop car as they approach the crooks. Orange can’t stop him because his job is to get Joe. When Orange and White try to carjack a vehicle, the female driver pulls a gun out of her glove compartment and shoots Orange, who then shoots the innocent woman in self-defense. His make-believe role as a felon now becomes horrifyingly real as he has turned into a killer, which again shows the crossover between the worlds of those that abide by the law and those who break it. 

 

We now return to the aftermath of the crime taking place at the warehouse. Eddie, White and Pink return to find Blonde dead. Orange says Blonde was going to burn the cop. Eddie then executes Nash, who could have identified them, wiping out Orange’s attempt to save the officer, and any drop of humanity in the situation. Orange says that Blonde was going to kill him, too, and then steal the diamonds. Eddie Doesn't buy it since Blonde took the blame for a robbery and spent four years in jail without implicating Joe, which shows Eddie valuing the loyalty of a sadist, a sad state of affairs. White doesn't trust Eddie and Joe for hiring Blonde, the “psychopath.” Joe shows up, tells them Blue is dead, and says he wasn’t “100%” sure of Orange, saying the bleeding man is the one who set them up. He is right, of course, but White defends Orange. There is a great deal of misplaced trust here. Joe threatens to shoot Orange, and White, Eddie and Joe pull out their guns. Joe shoots Orange, White shoots and kills Joe and Eddie, after Eddie shoots White while Pink hides. He then grabs the diamonds and runs off. (Tarantino says that in the background Pink is shot by the police, but lives and is apprehended). As White cradles Orange, presenting us with a mobster version of the Pieta, Orange decides to make a last confession and admits that he is a cop. White is in anguish at being so deceived and points his gun at Orange. The police show up, and White finishes Orange off before being riddled with bullets as the screen goes black.

 The film implies that wrongful actions beget more of the same, as the violent dominoes fall and crush everyone in their path, and loyalty may not be possible where people’s lives are ruled by deception and self-interest. 

 The next film is The Slender Thread.