Reservoir dogs

This exciting and controversial independent feature cemented Tarantino’s reputation as an important filmmaker. A brilliant ensemble cast, including Harvey Keital, Steve Buscemi, Tim Roth and Michael Masden, play a gang of armed robbers involved in a heist that goes comically wrong. Featuring a tight and witty script, this audaciously fast-moving film is influenced by the jubilant cinema of the French New Wave. It is also influenced by a gleefully indulgent love of American pop culture. On its release “Reservoir Dogs” was criticised for its violence, in particular, an unsettling torture scene in which Masden takes sadistic pleasure in murdering a cop. It is the mixing of sadism with a comically amoral detachment that marks the film’s break with the Hollywood tradition of the gangster epic and the film noir. There is no sentimental resolution to “Reservoir Dogs”, no clear-cut good guys and bad guys. An astonishingly assured first feature, that is rivetting, disturbing, funny and sometimes suprisingly homoerotic.