Monday at the Movies - October 1, 2012

Welcome to Week Thirty-Six of “Monday at the Movies.”  In recognition of the impending release of Django Unchained, and having already reviewed some of his films here before, we’re going to take a look at the rest of the oeuvre of Quentin Tarantino.

Reservoir Dogs (1992) – The auteur’s debut film, Reservoir Dogs is an odd case for me.  I’ve seen it at least twenty times, and when I was younger I was madly in love with it.  It’s the story of a jewel heist gone wrong, with the bandits interrogating each other to identify which is a police informant.  The plot is not quite original, but it’s an entry point for audiences into the oddball flair of Quentin Tarantino – the snappy dialogue, the unflinching violence, the romanticized nostalgia for the Seventies.  Honestly, this time out the film seemed more boring (but not unwatchable) than I remembered; there are long stretches where the characters do nothing but talk, and while this is fabulous for an enthusiast of the written word it doesn’t make for the most engaging moving pictures (this in a post-Avengers world, which also used an ensemble cast, but to more thrilling success).  What I must have loved as a young’un is Michael Madsen’s turn as the cold psychopath Mr. Blonde, which still works, as does Steve Buscemi as the rattled Mr. Pink.  But on the most recent watch, the real treasure isn’t the trademark Tarantino screenplay; it’s the performance of Harvey Keitel as Mr. White, whose dedication to the dying Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) meant more to me now than it could have as a child.  Looking back on Reservoir Dogs as a “first film,” it does what a first film ought to – demonstrate the potential of a new filmmaker with promise but without peaking.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week!