Tagarchief: Reservoir Dogs

08. Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

Quentin Tarantino’s sledgehammer arrival in cinemaland is a terrific crime thriller. The screenplay is the stuff of dreams with too many memorable dialogues and scenes to mention. And the non-linear storytelling is absolutely brilliant.

The video clerk turned filmmaker Tarantino managed to assemble an exceptional cast for his project: Harvey Keitel is solid as a rock, Steve Buscemi is funny as hell and Tim Roth is seriously convincing as the tormented Mr. Orange.

Then there are two actors portraying very realistic ánd very scary psychopaths: Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde and Chris Penn as Nice Guy Eddie. The scene in which the terrible Mr. Blonde tortures a police officer is still extremely hard to stomach.

What is so special about Reservoir Dogs is that it is a very clever homage to heist films, but outclasses many of the films it pays homage to (while they are really good films).

At the same time, it has the impact of an extremely hard hitting horror film. Without a doubt, the most sensational debut ever in Hollywood. If it wasn’t for Michael Mann’s Heat, this would be the top heist film on the list.

11. Rififi (1955)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Jules Dassin
Writers: Auguste Le Breton, Jules Dassin, René Wheeler

Stars: Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Marie Sabouret

This review is part of the feature:

The 33 Gangster Films You Can’t Refuse

Rififi – full title of the French release Du rififi chez les hommes – is an enormously influential heist film, inspiring classics like Reservoir Dogs, Ocean’s Eleven, The Usual Suspects, and Mission: Impossible.

The hard-boiled, hat-wearing criminal Tony le Stéphanois, played by Belgian actor Jean Servais, is released from prison after a five-year stint. He immediately scours the Paris underworld for his next lucrative score.

Along the way, he reconnects with his former lover, Mado (Marie Sabouret), who has since taken up with another dangerous criminal. In a brutal display of possessiveness, he beats her with a belt – a violent act that sows the seeds for later trouble once the loot is secured.

Tony soon finds his target: a diamond store. He plans to burglarize it at night with his protégé, Jo le Suédois (Jo the Swede), and two other accomplices.

Jules Dassin, a French-American director blacklisted in the U.S. for his communist sympathies, discovered the best-selling novel by Auguste le Breton, which he adapted for his first French film. Ironically, Dassin disliked the novel but needed the work.

With no budget for major stars, Dassin cast Servais in the lead and even took on a supporting role himself as César the Milanese (under the pseudonym Perlo Vita). Yet this proves no drawback: Servais is magnetic and unforgettable as Tony, and the supporting cast shines just as brightly.

The screenplay follows what is now a classic heist-movie structure: meticulous preparation, the heist itself, and a violent third act. The jewel store burglary stands as one of cinema’s most iconic sequences – a gripping, dialogue-free half-hour of pure tension.

The film earned widespread acclaim for its stunning cinematography by Philippe Agostini. The Daily Mirror called it “undoubtedly the best underworld story yet filmed”, while François Truffaut declared it “the best film noir I’ve ever seen.”

Dassin’s direction won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, and for good reason. Few gangster films achieve such visual mastery – Rififi is truly spellbinding.

Dungeon Classics #40: Killing Zoe

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

Killing Zoe (1993, USA, France)

Director: Roger Avary
Cast: Eric Stoltz, Julie Delpy, Jean-Hugues Anglade
Running Time: 96 mins.

Before Tarantino and co-writer Roger Avary struck gold with Pulp Fiction in 1994, both had written and directed a feature. Tarantino made Reservoir Dogs in 1992. While searching for locations for that film, its producer Lawrence Bender found a great bank in downtown Los Angeles which, although not suitable for Reservoir Dogs, seemed perfect for a movie set in a bank. Bender called every screenwriter he knew, asking if they had a script set in a bank. Roger Avary lied and said he did, then furiously wrote the first draft in under two weeks. Although the film is supposed to be set in Paris, it was shot almost entirely in L.A., with only the opening and closing road sequences filmed in the actual city. The story follows a criminal named Zed (Eric Stoltz) – two links to Pulp Fiction right there – who joins his old friend Eric (Jean-Hugues Anglade) and his gang to pull off a robbery during Bastille Day. Beforehand, he orders a prostitute named Zoe (Julie Delpy), and the two immediately click. The night before the robbery, the crew goes out on a binge fueled by booze and heroin. This stretch of the movie drags, but once the robbery begins, the film shifts into the right gear. The heist goes spectacularly wrong, leading to a series of twisted and disturbing turns. Avary, whose filmmaking career never really went very far, proves himself a quite capable director here. Is this on the level of Tarantino? No, it’s too flawed for that, but this is still a memorable, exploitation movie known for its nihilistic tone and merciless violence.

Dungeon Classics #39: True Romance

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

FilmDungeon’s Chief Editor JK sorts through the Dungeon’s DVD-collection to look for old cult favorites….

True Romance (1993, USA, France)

Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Dennis Hopper
Running Time: 119 mins.

In the early nineties, Tarantino wrote a couple of screenplays, including True Romance and Reservoir Dogs. He chose Reservoir Dogs for his directorial debut and was willing to sell True Romance. In 1993, after his debut was released, he took a date to the perfect date movie: True Romance, the film he had written. And boy, did it turn out to be a good movie; great fucking movie. Just looking at the cast members rolling by in the opening credits is astonishing; seeing so many (future) stars in one ensemble cast is rare. Director Tony Scott couldn’t deal with the screenplay’s non-chronological structure, so he changed it to a linear one. But aside from that, it’s a real Tarantino movie: the sharp dialogue, the great characters, the humor, the sudden bursts of violence; it’s all there. And then there’s an amazing sequence, one of the best he ever wrote: the famous Sicilian scene with Dennis Hopper and Christopher Walken. Oh man, that is legendary. Also memorable is the brutal confrontation between Alabama and the sadistic Virgil, played by James Gandolfini. The whole movie is basically a rollercoaster in which the two main characters – Clarence (Christian Slater) and Alabama (Patricia Arquette) – fall in love, get married, kill Alabama’s pimp, take off with his coke, and head to Hollywood to sell it, stumbling into one crazy situation after another while always keeping the film’s romantic core intact. True Romance is Scott’s best film and by far the best Tarantino movie not directed by Tarantino. In other words: it’s a must-see.