Reservoir Dogs
Directed by Quentin Tarantino
1992
Quentin Tarantino's debut.
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Story of a group of bank robbers fresh out of a job gone wrong who all suspect somebody is an undercover cop. Filled to the brim with extremely tense scenes of very dangerous men who are all on edge and untrusting of one another. It was a hit, doubling it's budget in gross at the box office, allowing Quentin to ride the fame to his next films, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, which made him a household name. Reservoir Dogs also showed me that Tarantino had his own style of direction and twisting the traditional linear narrative since the beginning.
Performance: There were lots of different personalities in this little group of robbers but they all managed to stay within the confines of being dangerous. For example some of them were loud, explosive, and seemingly ready to fire off at any time, while others were cool, calm, intimidating but also very tense. Like a big cat ready to pounce. These conflicting personalities clashed in the highly confrontational situation and this just made for a very interesting watch. Especially since most of the film was building up to a huge climax that showed all our fear of the heavy atmosphere wasn't unjustified.
I don't think I could find an image to better sum up the film than this, no matter how long I'd search:
Editing: There were fast cuts between each character during moments of heightened tension. This made us increasingly anxious as every time there was a cut, it was quick and sudden. This made the audience jump as they were already getting increasingly nervous. In contrast to this, during the few scenes that weren't very thrilling and served as a break to let the audience's heart beat regulate, the editing used slow fade in's and outs and not many drastic hard cuts from different angles. This was so that the audience didn't associate this style of transition with calm and docile situations, otherwise the tense situations that used these transitions wouldn't seem as nerve-wracking because the editing seems the same as the calm situation.
1992
Quentin Tarantino's debut.
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Story of a group of bank robbers fresh out of a job gone wrong who all suspect somebody is an undercover cop. Filled to the brim with extremely tense scenes of very dangerous men who are all on edge and untrusting of one another. It was a hit, doubling it's budget in gross at the box office, allowing Quentin to ride the fame to his next films, Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill, which made him a household name. Reservoir Dogs also showed me that Tarantino had his own style of direction and twisting the traditional linear narrative since the beginning.
Performance: There were lots of different personalities in this little group of robbers but they all managed to stay within the confines of being dangerous. For example some of them were loud, explosive, and seemingly ready to fire off at any time, while others were cool, calm, intimidating but also very tense. Like a big cat ready to pounce. These conflicting personalities clashed in the highly confrontational situation and this just made for a very interesting watch. Especially since most of the film was building up to a huge climax that showed all our fear of the heavy atmosphere wasn't unjustified.
I don't think I could find an image to better sum up the film than this, no matter how long I'd search:
Editing: There were fast cuts between each character during moments of heightened tension. This made us increasingly anxious as every time there was a cut, it was quick and sudden. This made the audience jump as they were already getting increasingly nervous. In contrast to this, during the few scenes that weren't very thrilling and served as a break to let the audience's heart beat regulate, the editing used slow fade in's and outs and not many drastic hard cuts from different angles. This was so that the audience didn't associate this style of transition with calm and docile situations, otherwise the tense situations that used these transitions wouldn't seem as nerve-wracking because the editing seems the same as the calm situation.
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