Reservoir Dogs

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Reservoir Dogs is Quentin Tarantino's 1992 debut as a feature film director. It introduced many of the themes and aesthetics that have become Tarantino's hallmarks — violent crime; pop culture references; memorable dialogue; and nonlinear stories.

It features Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, and Lawrence Tierney. Tarantino has a minor role, as does criminal-turned-author Eddie Bunker.

Tarantino (who had been working as a video store clerk in Los Angeles) was originally going to shoot it with his friends on a budget of $30,000 on 16mm with producer Lawrence Bender playing Nice Guy Eddie. However, actor Harvey Keitel became involved via the wife of Bender's acting class teacher, who had managed to get a copy of the script to him. He agreed not only to act in the film, but to co-produce. With Keitel's assistance, the filmmakers were able to raise $1.2 million to make the film, fairly large for an independently-financed film, but a small fraction of the typical Hollywood production.

The movie has since come to be seen as an important and highly-influential milestone of independent filmmaking. Film critic Jami Bernard of New York Daily News said of the film's premier at Sundance: "I don't think people were ready. They didn't know what to make of it. It's like the first silent movie when audiences saw the train coming toward the camera and scattered." [1]

1 Plot synopsis
2 Influences
3 The Characters' Fates
4 Trivia
5 Cast
6 Crew
7 External links

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Plot synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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Beginning

The film portrays the events preceding and immediately following a badly botched Los Angeles jewel heist (but not the actual heist itself) orchestrated by Joe "Daddy" Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and his son "Nice Guy" Eddie Cabot (Chris Penn). Six men are recruited by the Cabots to carry out the heist and, for reasons of security, are given "color" aliases:

Mr.White/Larry Dimmick - (Harvey Keitel)
Mr.Orange/Freddy Newandyke - (Tim Roth)
Mr.Blonde/Vic Vega - (Michael Madsen)
Mr.Pink - (Steve Buscemi)
"Nice Guy" Eddie Cabot - (Chris Penn)
Joe Cabot - (Lawrence Tierney)
Mr.Blue - (Eddie Bunker)
Mr.Brown - (Quentin Tarantino)

To protect their identities, they are further instructed to never tell one another anything of their personal backgrounds.

Reservoir Dogs begins with Joe, Eddie, and the six robbers eating breakfast at a small diner. Mr. Brown discusses, at length, his interpretation of Madonna's popular song Like a Virgin, after which Mr. Pink expresses his anti-tipping policy, which everyone except Mr. Orange tends to disagree with.

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Title sequence

To the accompaniment of "Little Green Bag" (by the George Baker Selection) the gang, including Joe and "Nice Guy" Eddie Cabot are shown in slow motion walking towards the heist vehicles. Despite obvious homage to the conclusion of Rat Pack favorite Ocean's Eleven, the sequence has become iconic itself, providing basis for the film's poster art and the logo for A Band Apart, a film production company of which Tarantino was a member.

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The warehouse

The scene jumps to a car with Mr. White and Mr. Orange immediately following the failed robbery. Mr. Orange has been seriously injured by a gunshot to the lower abdomen, and Mr. White is attempting to comfort him while at the same time trying to navigate the car back to the pre-arranged rendezvous, a disused warehouse.

At the warehouse, a long-abandoned funeral home, Mr. White and Mr. Orange discover that they are the first to arrive. White sets Orange down on a ramp for elevation and lies with him comfortingly. Mr. Pink comes in shortly thereafter, and discusses with White what went wrong while Orange lies on the warehouse floor bleeding profusely. Pink suggests a setup since a large contingent of police officers with guns drawn arrived almost immediately after the alarm had been set off. Pink reveals that he was nevertheless able to take the diamonds and hide them.

Image:Rd-carjack.jpgThe film cuts to Mr. Pink running down the sidewalk, a valise filled with millions of dollars worth of diamonds in hand and police hot on his tail. He is hit by a car at an intersection, but manages to get up and wrench a kicking and screaming driver out through the window, shoot two of the pursuing officers, and drive off amidst a hail of gunfire.

Back at the warehouse, Pink and White both express their anger and confusion over the fact that Mr. Blonde shot and killed several of the hostages after the alarm was set off. They discuss briefly their views on unnecessary violence, and Pink suggests that the Cabots will likely turn them in to the police in an effort to deflect some of the blame for the slaughter from themselves.

White and Pink move to the main floor of the warehouse with the badly injured Orange. White and Pink argue over whether or not to leave the warehouse in fear of being apprehended by the police, and whether or not to take Orange to a hospital. When White reveals to Pink that he'd told Orange his hometown (Milwaukee) during the course of "natural conversation" while preparing for the job, as well as his first name (Larry) in the car to comfort him, Mr. Pink flatly tells Mr. White "we ain't takin' him to a hospital..."

Image:Blonde white pink trunk-shot.jpg

The argument climaxes with both men pointing loaded pistols at each other. Unnoticed, Mr. Blonde steps in sipping a soda and speaks up; he'd been watching for some time now. The arguing continues, although not as dramatically, until Blonde takes the others outside to his car. There, he opens the trunk to reveal a captured police officer.

The film cuts to Joe Cabot's office and the revelation of Blonde's true name — Vic Vega. Vic has just been released from prison after serving four years for taking the fall for a crime (we learn much later that it involved "a warehouse full of stolen goods") in which Joe had been implicated. Eddie and Vic wrestle around on the floor for a bit in a friendly way, while a testy Joe looks on in dismay. Joe and Eddie offer Vic a steady job with good pay (longshoreman) to reassure Vic's suspicious parole officer and allow Vic to move out of the state-run halfway house. Vic expresses a desire to perform "real work" (i.e., criminal activity); after some deliberation, Eddie asks to include Vic on the team for an upcoming diamond heist as a "good luck charm". Joe and Vic agree.

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Eddie's arrival

The film returns to the present. Eddie is driving hastily towards the warehouse, talking on a cellular phone, discussing the "major problem" with one of Joseph's assistants ("Dov"). He mentions a telephone conversation he had with Vic beforehand regarding the botched heist and Vic's "driving around with a fucking cop in his trunk". The scene is spliced together with shots from the warehouse of Pink, Blonde, and White tying the officer (Kirk Baltz) up and beating him excessively. Eddie arrives at the warehouse and storms in to see them pounding on the police officer, already an unrecognizable bloody mess. The three summarize the events of the afternoon to Eddie, who refuses to believe there is any setup. Eddie orders Pink and White to come with him to move the cars and to retrieve the stolen diamonds from Pink's hiding spot, while ordering Blonde to stay with the dying Orange and the tied up police officer.

Mr. White says he doesn't want to leave Blonde alone with Orange and the officer, calling him a psychopath, while Mr. Blonde calmly defends himself. Eddie dismisses the claims and takes Mr. White and Mr. Pink outside with him to move the cars and gather the diamonds, leaving Blonde alone with Mr. Orange and the officer.

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The ear-cutting scene

At this point, the infamous ear-cutting scene begins. Mr. Blonde and the officer exchange some words. The officer denies knowing anything about the setup, and begs to be released. Mr. Blonde, in a disturbingly calm way, states that he does not care what the officer does or does not know, but that he is going to torture him anyway because he finds it amusing. After taping the officer's mouth shut, Mr. Blonde then draws a straight razor from his boot and tunes a radio to K-Billy's "Super Sounds of the '70s Weekend", which is playing Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel. Moving slowly and sadistically in rhythm with the music towards the officer, he begins waving the blade about in front of his face. He slashes the officer's left cheek and takes a few steps backward. He then moves back up to the officer and violently grabs his head. The camera pans away (to a wall with graffiti that ironically says "Watch Your Head") as Mr. Blonde cuts off the officer's right ear with a protracted sawing motion, then pans back as he dangles it in front of the officer, who screams behind the tape in agony.

Mr. Blonde then casually walks out of the warehouse while the officer continues to scream. He grabs a metal one gallon can of gasoline from the trunk of Eddie's car and brings it back inside. He opens the container and splashes gasoline over the officer and leaves a small trail of it on the ground as he steps back a few feet.

Image:Orange shooting blonde.jpg

Mr. Blonde rips the tape from the officer's face, and the officer tearfully begs for mercy. Mr. Blonde dismisses his requests and prepares to ignite the gasoline with his cigarette lighter. Suddenly, a series of gunshots ring out and hit Mr. Blonde several times in the chest, causing him to stagger backwards and fall into the wall. We see that the shooter is the now-conscious Mr. Orange.

Mr. Orange, clearly dying from his wound, tells the officer that he is actually an undercover police detective named Freddy Newendyke. The tied-up officer, who gives his name as Marvin Nash, reveals that he knew this all along, having met Mr. Orange five months previously (Mr. Orange did not remember this). Mr. Orange reassures the officer that a large police force is waiting a few blocks down the road for his signal to advance. The officer begs him to call in the force in light of both men's serious injuries, but Mr. Orange refuses to call anyone in until " Daddy" Joe arrives.

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Revelations about Freddy/Mr. Orange

Flashback: Mr. Orange a.k.a. Freddy and a police detective named Holdaway (Randy Brooks) meet at a restaurant. Freddy tells Holdaway that he has secured a spot in a heist with Joe Cabot. Freddy talks about his first meeting with the other members of the gang, and, judging from Mr. White's discussion about the Brewers, Holdaway guesses he is from Milwaukee.

Flashback: the first meeting, where Mr. Orange tells a story — which Mr. Orange memorized from a script Holdaway provided — about how he was almost caught by sheriff's deputies while carrying a travel bag full of marijuana while in the men's room of the Los Angeles train station.

Flashback: A police station, Freddy and Holdaway search for info on Mr. White, who they discover is named Larry Dimmick (this was omitted from the released version of the film but can be viewed as one of the extras on the "Anniversary Edition" DVD.)

Flashback: Mr. Orange's apartment a few days before the robbery, where he is called down to Eddie's car by cellular telephone. Mr. Orange arms himself with two handguns, places a wedding band on his finger (probably a good luck charm), looks at himself in the mirror and tries to calm himself down. Mr. Orange then proceeds to the warehouse where the robbers will receive their aliases and their instructions for carrying out the heist.

Image:Ltierney2.JPG

Flashback: The rendezvous warehouse, before the robbery, where some of the group is talking and joking. When everyone finally arrives, Joe begins to explain the master plan and gives everyone — except for himself and Eddie — their aliases. Mr. Pink protests his name as being too effeminate and Mr. Brown says his name sounds too much like "Mr. Shit". The group argues until Joe quickly and bluntly lays down the law and regains control of the meeting. The scene ends as Joe begins describing the holdup plan.

Flashback: Freddy and Holdaway discussing the robbery plan. Freddy expresses his discomfort with the entire undercover operation, but Holdaway calms him down and assures him that protection will be there for him (another scene which was deleted from the released version).

Flashback: Mr. White and Mr. Orange sitting in a car in front of the diamond exchange several days before the robbery discussing the plan in detail. Mr. White quizzes Mr. Orange on the plan's details and offers advice on how to deal with any problems that may arise. There seems to be good chemistry between the two; Mr. White has taken a liking to Mr. Orange.

Flashback: Mr. Brown, Mr. White, and Mr. Orange fleeing from the police immediately following the robbery. Mr. Brown, driving, is bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head and crashes into the front of a parked car. Mr. White jumps out of the car and runs to the end of the alley to find a police car coming around the corner. As the police car stops, Mr. White rapidly fires his two pistols into the car's windshield, killing both officers. Mr. White comes back to the car to find Mr. Brown dead. Mr. White and Mr. Orange proceed to the end of the alley and force a car to stop and order the driver out. The driver (Suzanne Celeste) however, is armed with a revolver and shoots Mr. Orange in the stomach just after he opens the door. Mr. Orange shoots the driver in the chest, killing her instantly. Mr. White pulls Mr. Orange, shocked by what he just did, into the car and they begin to drive to the rendezvous warehouse, the same scene with which the film proper began.

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Climax and conclusion

Mr. White, Mr. Pink, and Eddie return to the warehouse to find Mr. Blonde dead and the officer bloodied and covered in gasoline.

Mr. Orange tells them that Mr. Blonde went insane and was going to burn the officer alive, and then kill Mr. Orange and the rest of the gang when they return, to take the diamonds for himself. Mr. White believes him, Eddie thinks he is lying, and Mr. Pink is neutral — trying to calm everyone down. Eddie, furious at Mr. Orange, pulls out his gun and shoots the injured officer several times in the chest, killing him. He then reveals to Mr. Orange Mr. Blonde's history of loyalty towards the Cabots, how he did four years without rolling over on them, and how after he gets out, and the Cabots make good on their obligations towards him, that it would be absurd for Blonde to just "decide, out of the fucking blue to rip us off!!" Joe walks in and claims that anything else Mr. Orange says would just be "more bullshit".

Image:White joe eddie standoff.jpg Joe then accuses Mr. Orange of being an undercover cop because he wasn't "100% sure" that he could be trusted. Mr. White dismisses Joe's claim and adamantly defends Mr. Orange, stating that he "knows" him and he "wouldn't do that". Joe pulls his gun out and points it at Mr. Orange; Mr. White pulls his gun out and points it at Joe; and Eddie pulls his gun out and points it at Mr. White. Mr. Pink screams for everyone to calm down as the three yell at each other and threaten to shoot. Suddenly, everyone except for Mr. Pink and Mr. Orange open fire all at once.

In the script the standoff is not described. If one watches the film closely, one can see that, in sequence:

Joe shoots Mr. Orange,
Mr. White then shoots and kills Joe for shooting Mr. Orange,
Eddie shoots Mr. White for shooting his father, and finally
Mr. White shoots and kills Eddie while falling after being shot.

The bullet hitting Eddie is not seen, although Mr. White's gun points in his direction and fires a round; the mistake was acknowledged by Chris Penn in the audio commentary of the special edition DVD as an error involving blood squibs going off prematurely, prompting him to fall too soon. Despite the mistake, the scene would not be reshot as Tarantino liked the added mystery.

Joe and Eddie are dead, while Mr. White is wounded and collapses on the floor. Mr. Pink, unharmed, stares in shock at the carnage for a while — including the corpses of Mr. Blonde and the police officer, as well as the fatally-wounded Mr. Orange — then grabs the valise full of diamonds and runs out of the warehouse. He does not escape justice though, as the police have just arrived.

As police cars roar outside the warehouse, Mr. White pulls Mr. Orange close to him and Mr. Orange tells Mr. White that he's a cop, and that he's sorry. Mr. White, clearly feeling horrified and betrayed by this statement, puts the gun to Mr. Orange's cheek as he tries to control his tears. The police storm inside and demand Mr. White put the gun down. At this point Tarantino pushes into a close-up on Mr. White's face. We don't see Mr. Orange as Mr. White shoots him in the head, followed by the police shooting Mr. White. After this scene, the film immediately cuts to the credits, accompanied by "Coconut" by Harry Nilsson.

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Influences

Tarantino is well-known for his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, and Reservoir Dogs is liberally influenced by numerous films, particularly Hong Kong action cinema, French New Wave, the heist film and Samuel Fuller. These influences can be seen in everything from the suits the characters wear (inspired by the finale of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow II, itself possibly inspired by the Blues Brothers), to the color code names from The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, to Tierney's line about John Dillinger (he played the famous Indiana bank robber in the 1945 film Dillinger).

The screenplay, written by Tarantino, was partly inspired by Hong Kong director Ringo Lam's 1987 Long hu feng yun (City on Fire), starring Chow Yun-Fat and Danny Lee. Reportedly one of Tarantino's favorite films, he borrowed several key plot points and scenes, though the styles, dialogue and stories are quite different. In particular, the "Mexican standoff" at the end of the film is similar to one that takes place in City on Fire, and both stories are told from the point of view of an undercover cop with conflicting loyalties.

Tarantino himself has been forward and unapologetic about his influences. In a 1994 interview with Empire magazine, he said, "I steal from every single movie ever made. If people don't like that, then tough tills, don't go and see it, all right? I steal from everything. Great artists steal, they don't do homages."

Reservoir Dogs itself spawned many imitators in the 1990s, often low-budget independent films panned by critics and dismissed by audiences. Movies often cited as examples include Destiny Turns on the Radio (which featured Tarantino), Suicide Kings, Thursday, Two Days in the Valley, Killing Zoe (Tarantino was the executive producer), S.F.W., and Mad Dog Time.

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The Characters' Fates

Mr. White - Shot dead by police.
Mr. Orange - Shot in the stomach during a car hijack, shot in the shoulder during climax, shot in the head by Mr. White at the finale.
Mr. Blonde - Shot to death by Mr. Orange.
Mr. Pink - Arrested.
"Nice Guy" Eddie Cabot - Shot dead by Mr. White.
Joe Cabot - Shot dead by Mr. White.
Mr. Blue - Dead (fate unknown)
Mr. Brown - Shot in head, later died of brain injuries.

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Trivia

One role (purportedly Mr. Orange; Tarantino won't confirm or deny) was written for James Woods, but his agent threw the script in the trash without showing it to him. When Woods later learned of this, he fired the agent.
During the scene where Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) tortures Officer Nash, the young cop begs for his life, saying he has a child at home. Madsen, who himself had just become a father in real life, was so upset by this line — the concept of leaving a young child without a father — that he had difficulty finishing the scene (actor Kirk Baltz, who played Nash, had ad-libbed the line during filming).
In the original concept for Pulp Fiction, the diamonds from this heist were to be the contents of Marsellus Wallace's briefcase. Also, this movie's Vic Vega and Pulp Fiction's Vincent Vega were supposed to be brothers.
The first dialogue sequence features a lengthy discussion about Madonna. Chris Penn's brother (and fellow actor) Sean Penn was briefly married to Madonna during the mid 1980s.
The film has 252 uses of the word "fuck".
For the European release the distributor used one sheet poster of each of the main characters. This marketing strategy has since become widespread.
According to Quentin Tarantino, Mr. Pink survives, but is arrested by the police — in the background, policemen can be heard ordering Pink to put his hands on the ground, then Pink says "I give up" after a brief firefight in which he is wounded but not killed.
The makers had so little to work with that many of the costumes used in the film belonged to the actors themselves; most notably Steve Buscemi's (Mr. Pink's) infamous black jeans.
The title is a combination of the film Straw Dogs and a corruption of Au revoir, les enfants, a film by Louis Malle.
The plot of the movie was a huge influence in the music video for the band Rammstein's song Du hast.
The woman who shoots Mr. Orange in the stomach (and who Orange shoots in return) is played by Tim Roth's dialect coach.
Samuel L. Jackson auditioned for the role of Mr. Orange, but Quentin Tarantino felt Tim Roth gave a better audition. Tarantino would later write Pulp Fiction with the part of Jules written specifically for him in mind. Jackson also plays a main character in Jackie Brown and makes a brief cameo appearance in the second part of Kill Bill.
The woman that Mr. Orange shoots was pregnant. This is known from the cries of Mr. Orange after he was shot.
Nice Guy Eddie mentions the name "Snake Charmer" which was the codename for David Carradine's character "Bill" from "Kill Bill".
The woman that Mr. Pink pulls out of the car that he hijacks is the same woman that Ving Rhames's character (Marsellus Wallace) in Pulp Fiction hits when he is shooting at Butch.
The ear-cutting scene was parodied on The Simpsons in an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon. It was also parodied on Saturday Night Live.
The comic Johnny the Homicidal Maniac has a reference to the ear-cutting scene. One of the twenty tortures that the so-called "Tickle Me Hellmo" (itself an obvious spoof off the Tickle Me Elmo) is that it "re-enacts that scene from Reservoir Dogs. The Hellmo is depicted circling its victim, wearing a suit and tossing a butcher knife in the air.
In the opening scene, Mr. Pink reveals that unless they deserve it, he doesn't tip waitresses. In Pulp Fiction, Steve Buscemi makes a credited cameo as a waiter.
The cover of rock band AFI's album Answer That and Stay Fashionable is a parody of one of the Reservoir Dogs movie posters.
Koushin Takami has supposedly admitted that the lighthouse portion of his novel, Battle Royale was inspired by Reservoir Dogs.
The original ending of Tarantino's True Romance script (before it was changed by director Tony Scott) had Clarence dying in the gun battle, leaving Alabama a widow. Tarantino said that he intended Alabama to turn to crime and join with Mr. White, a character from Reservoir Dogs (which he wrote and directed). In a flashback scene in Reservoir Dogs, Mr. White is asked about "Alabama".
At the end of the film, Mr. White repeatedly says "If you shoot him (Mr. Orange), you die next" - and it's true (throughout the film). The woman who shoots him dies when Mr. Orange shoots her; Joe shoots him, and dies when Mr. White shoots back; and finally Mr. White shoots him, and dies at the hands of the police.
During a flashback Joe and Nice Guy Eddie are talking with a recently parolled Mr. Blonde. He reveals his parole officer is Scagnetti, the same name of the detective who is chasing down Mickey and Mallory Knox in Natural Born Killers
Reservoir Dogs, features characters wearing Ray Ban sunglasses (most famously in the opening credit sequence which featured the characters in black suits putting on Wayfarer Ray Bans to George Baker's "Little Green Bag".)