Reservoir Dogs (1992)
- To accurately portray their role in Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel spent weeks conducting hands-on research and rehearsing directly with director Quentin Tarantino.
- Despite initial studio skepticism, Reservoir Dogs went on to gross over $2,900,000 worldwide.
Reservoir Dogs is a 1992 American crime thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in his feature film debut. The film follows the aftermath of a diamond heist gone catastrophically wrong, as the surviving members of a group of criminals β known to each other only by color-coded aliases: Mr. White, Mr.
Orange, Mr. Pink, Mr. Blonde, Mr.
Brown, and Mr. Blue β regroup at a warehouse rendezvous point and attempt to determine which of them is a police informant. The story is told through a fragmented, nonlinear narrative that intersperses the tense, paranoid warehouse scenes with flashbacks revealing each character's recruitment and the heist itself β which, in one of the film's most audacious choices, is never shown on screen.
Reservoir Dogs announced Quentin Tarantino as a revolutionary filmmaking talent with its crackling dialogue, inventive structure, and willingness to juxtapose extreme violence with darkly comic banter and pop culture discussion. The opening diner scene, in which the criminals debate the ethics of tipping waitresses and the meaning of Madonna's "Like a Virgin," became one of the most iconic and imitated dialogue sequences in cinema. Michael Madsen's performance as the psychopathic Mr.
Blonde, particularly the notorious ear-cutting scene set to Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You," established Tarantino's signature technique of pairing violence with incongruously cheerful music. Made for approximately $1.2 million, Reservoir Dogs earned $2.8 million in its initial theatrical run but became a massive hit on home video, where it developed a devoted cult following. The film launched the careers of Tarantino and several of its cast members, and its influence on independent cinema throughout the 1990s was immeasurable.
