Gangster Joe Cabot and his son, Nice Guy Eddie, get together a group of thieves and plan an elaborate scheme to rob a jewellery store.  The thieves are known to each other only by names, such as Mr. Brown, Mr. Blonde, Mr. White, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink.  The movie begins with a scene of the whole gang having breakfast.  This is a long sequence that's excellently written.  Then, the opening credits roll, and there's a quick cut to a very disturbing scene in a car - with Mr. White driving, and Mr. Orange shot in the stomach!

Mr. White, the almost unconscious Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink regroup at their warehouse hideout.  They suspect that the police somehow knew about the robbery in advance, that's why they were ambushed so easily.  They now think there's an informer among them, who tipped off the cops.  The rest of the movie alternates between scenes of the criminals trying to find out what exactly happened at the scene of the robbery (as they return to the hideout one by one), and flashbacks, telling us about each character and showing how the group got together.  There are plenty of twists as the movie rapidly moves towards it's excellent conclusion, reminiscent of the Chow Yun-Fat movie City on Fire.

Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's debut film, and it is one of my all-time favourite movies.  The reason I enjoyed this movie so much is that it had a script, acting and a directing style unlike anything I had ever seen before.  The characters are very unique and well-developed.  Especially Michael Madsen as the psychotic Mr. Blonde - even after watching him mercilessly torture a police officer, you'll still feel a bit sorry for him when you hear Nice Guy Eddie talking about his integrity in the final scene.  The movie was shot on a low budget, and is filmed mostly just in a large warehouse/garage.  There is no music score, but the film has an awesome soundtrack.  Be warned, however that this movie contains an extreme amount of profanity, and one very unsettling torture scene, not to mention some strong scenes of violence, which is why TV versions of this film almost always are severely censored.

Some of my favourite scenes:

• The very first scene, and the opening credits.
• The chase sequence in the streets with Mr. Pink running from the cops.
• The scene where Joe gives the criminals their names.
• Although I can't bear to watch some parts of the torture scene, it's one of the most famous scenes in the film, (with "Stuck in the Middle With You" by Stealer's Wheel playing in the background!)
• Mr. Orange/Freddy telling Joe's gang about the incident in the men's room is such a brilliant scene.

I have seen two different "edited for TV" versions of this movie.  One was shown on STAR Movies in December 1997.  This was the first time I saw the movie and it was a severely censored version - in fact it was difficult to follow what was happening because of the cuts.  The version shown on AXN Action TV is better because it doesn't have missing scenes.  Only parts of dialogue are blanked out (due to language).

Running Time: 99 minutes | Country: US | Genre: Crime