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Reservoir Dogs (1992)
In writer Quentin Tarantino's debut scripted and directed
cult film about a crime-gone-wrong - a botched jewelry store heist
of Karina's Wholesale Diamonds; the male-oriented, testosterone-fueled
tale told about a group of cigarette-smoking, shades-wearing, low-life,
color-coded or named Los Angeles criminals - the non-linear crime
was documented by jumping between both pre-heist and post-heist scenarios,
but avoided the actual robbery itself:
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Mr. Brown
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Mr. White
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Mr. Blonde
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Mr. Blue
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Mr. Orange
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Mr. Pink
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- in the pre-credits opening breakfast table scene
(an ensemble grouping), eight various criminal characters - mostly
Mr. Brown (director Tarantino) - conversed about the meaning of
Madonna's popular "Like a Virgin" song - "Let me
tell you what Like a Virgin's about. It's all about a girl
who digs a guy with a big dick. The entire song, it's a metaphor
for big dicks...Like a Virgin's not about some sensitive
girl who meets a nice fella. That's what True Blue's about.
Now, granted, no argument about that...Let me tell you what Like
a Virgin's about. It's all about this cooze who's a regular
f--k machine. I'm talkin' morning, day, night, afternoon . . .
dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick... Then one
day, she meets this John Holmes motherf--ker, and it's like, whoa
baby. I mean, this cat is like Charles Bronson in The Great
Escape. He's digging tunnels. She's getting this serious dick
action and she's feelin' something she ain't felt since forever
. . . Pain. Pain... It hurts. It hurts her. It shouldn't hurt her.
You know, her pussy should be Bubble Yum by now, but when this
cat f--ks her, it hurts. It hurts just like it did the first time.
You see, the pain is reminding a f--k machine what it was once
like to be a virgin. Hence...Like a Virgin."
- at the end of the meal when everone was contributing
to the bill, a reluctant Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) complained about
the waitress service, and argued that he didn't believe in the practice
of tipping:
"Uh uh, I don't tip...No, I don't believe in it...Don't give me
that, if she don't make enough money, she can quit....I don't tip because
society says I have to. All right, I mean I'll tip if somebody really
deserves a tip, if they really put forth the effort, I'll give them
something extra, but I mean this tipping automatically, uh, it's for
the birds..."
- the opening titles credits in which the jewel robbery
gang (composed of eight total strangers) walked in slow-motion toward
the camera (as they were identified) to the tune of "Little
Green Bag"
- after the failed heist, Mr. White (Harvey Kietel)
- with Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) bleeding profusely from a stomach wound
- met up with Mr. Pink in a warehouse rendezvous point; while discussing
the heist, Mr. Pink strongly suspected that they had been set up: "Where
did all those cops come from, huh?" (and that one of the criminals
was a rat - in other words, a cop) - he recalled his escape - "I
shot my way out. Everybody started shootin', so I blasted my way
out of there" - the sequence was replayed with Pink frantically
running down the street while pursued by three cops; he returned
gunfire while he attempted to carjack a vehicle; he admitted that
he didn't kill any 'real people': "I tagged a couple of cops";
White informed him that Brown was dead, and they talked about how
'psychopathic' Blonde had panicked and gone crazy and murdered several
innocent civilians during the heist ("What you don't do is start
shootin' up the place and start killin' people"); and it appeared
that Blue and Blonde were missing (they were
either arrested or dead); Pink admitted that he had stashed the diamonds
nearby ("I got the diamonds...I stashed 'em")
- further tension developed between Pink and White
at the meeting point, when they were worried about the identity of
a "rat" in their midst; they both drew guns deadlocked
on each other: (Pink: "You wanna f--k with me? I'll show you
who you're f--kin' with!" White: "You wanna shoot me, you
little piece of s--t? Go ahead, take a shot!" Pink: "F--k
you, White! I didn't create this situation, I'm dealin' with it!
You're actin' like a first-year f--kin' thief! I'm actin' like a
professional! If they get him, they could get you. They get you,
they get closer to me and that can't happen! You're lookin' at me
like it's my fault? I didn't tell him my name! I didn't tell him
where I was from! S--t! Fifteen minutes ago you almost told me your
name! You're gonna get stuck in a situation you created! So if you
wanna throw bad looks around, throw 'em at a mirror!")
- the sequence of White and Pink's altercation was interrupted
by the sudden and unexpected appearance of suspicious, psychotic
gang member Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) at the hideout, who spoke
out: "You kids shouldn't play so rough, somebody's gonna start
cryin'"; during the heist, the "trigger-happy" Blonde
had murdered several civilians; Pink wondered who was left of the
original gang: "Did you see what happened to Blue? Do you know
what happened - to you and Blue? That's all we were wonderin' about.
Come on. Look, Brown is dead. Orange got it in the belly"; in
agreement with Pink, White hypothesized to Blonde: "We think
we got a rat in the house"; Blonde proudly showed off a kidnapped
policeman in the trunk of his car - taken as hostage
- the violent and menacing torture scene following the
robbery when Mr. Blonde was left alone to take charge of the cop-hostage
and Mr. Orange; to find out who was the 'rat' responsible for the
set-up, Blonde excised the ear of his cop-hostage Marvin Nash (Kirk
Baltz) (accompanied by the Stealer's Wheel song recording of Stuck
in the Middle With You) and then threatened to set his gasoline-doused
victim on fire; suddenly, Mr. Orange, who was painfully bleeding
to death from a bullet in the stomach and witnessing the torture
from nearby, opened fire and killed Mr. Blonde - saving Marvin's
life before he was incinerated
Mr. Blonde's Torture of a Cop Hostage -
and Mr. Orange's Killing of Mr. Blonde
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- then, Mr. Orange delivered a remarkable confession
to Marvin: "Listen to me, Marvin. I'm a-- Listen to me, Marvin
Nash. I'm a cop"; Marvin admitted that he already knew: "Yeah,
I know...Yeah, your name's Freddy somethin'"; and according
to Marvin, the cops were waiting a block away until Joe Cabot showed
up ("They're not to make a move 'til Joe Cabot shows up")
- the sequence of Mr. Orange's pre-heist recitation
of his commode story (originally delivered to Joe Cabot when he was
hired for the heist) when he encountered four LA County Sheriffs
and a barking German shepherd in a restroom: "Panic hits me
like a bucket of water. Bam! Right in the face. I'm standing there
drenched in panic, and all these Sheriffs are lookin' at me and they
know, man. They can smell it, sure as that f--kin' dog can....";
one of the Sheriffs was relating a story of a suspect reaching for
the glove box while being warned not to - but he was only going for
his vehicle registration: ("Stupid f--kin' citizen doesn't know
how close he came to gettin' blown away. That close, man")
- the final de-briefing scene (in an abandoned L.A.
warehouse) before the failed jewelry heist by Joe Cabot (Lawrence
Tierney); he wanted the group of crooks to never talk about personal
information or past activities; to replace their "Christian
names,"
he handed out anonymous pseudonyms or aliases composed of color-codes
(Mr. Brown, Mr. White, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink)
to the six robbery gang members; "Mr. Pink" immediately raised
an objection and complained about his faggot-sounding name:
"Why am I Mr. Pink?...Why can't we pick our own colors?";
Joe explained:
"No way. No way. Tried it once. It doesn't work. You get four
guys all fightin' over who gets to be Mr. Black. They don't know each
other, so nobody wants to back down"; when Mr. Pink suggested
trading names with Mr. White, Joe overruled him: "Nobody's tradin'
with anybody. This ain't a goddamn f--kin' city council meeting, you
know" - and then gave him an ultimatum: "There's two ways
you can go on this job -- my way or the highway"
- in the next scene, another pre-heist sequence, Mr.
White and Mr. Orange sat in a car and discussed the two-minute grab
of diamonds; Mr. Orange explained that while Mr. Brown was waiting
outside in a car, Mr. Blue and Mr. Blonde handled the customers and
employees while Mr. White and Mr. Pink demanded diamonds from the
manager in the back-room; White explained how he would deal with
a recalcitrant manager: "If you wanna know somethin' he won't
tell ya, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then tell him
his thumb's next. After that, he'll tell you if he wears ladies underwear";
after his grisly strategy, White added:
"I'm hungry. Let's go get a taco"
- the post-heist escape continued to go horribly wrong
when driver Brown was driving away from the scene with White and
Orange; Brown died of his head wound; Mr. White unleashed a barrage
of gunfire on a cop car and killed two officers; and Mr. Orange was
shot in the gut by an armed female driver during an attempted car-jacking;
Orange shot back and killed her but was seriously wounded; as he
was driven back to the rendezvous point, Orange couldn't believe
his bad-luck: "I can't believe she killed me. Who'd have f--king
thought that?"
The Disastrous Post-Heist Escape Sequence
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Driver Mr. Brown Blinded by Blood and Dying
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White's Barrage of Gunfire at a Police Car
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Mr. Orange Retaliated After Being Shot in the
Stomach by Armed Woman
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Mr. Orange: "I can't believe she killed me"
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- after returning to the hideout site with Mr. White
and Mr. Pink, Nice Guy Eddie Cabot (Chris Penn) (with a bright
tracksuit jacket) listened as Mr. Orange confessed to White about
Blonde's torture of cop Marvin: ("Blonde went crazy. He slashed
the cop's face, cut off his ear and was gonna burn him alive....Eddie,
he was pulling a burn, man. He was gonna kill the cop and me. When
you guys walked in, he was gonna kill you and run with the diamonds");
Orange's implication (affirmed by Mr. White) was that Blonde was
the under-cover rat; Eddie non-chalantly put a few bullets into
Marvin's body, and then he repeated Mr. Orange's claim: "You're
saying that Mr. Blonde was gonna kill you and then when we got
back, he was gonna kill us, take the satchel of diamonds and scram" -
Eddie assertively denied that Orange would ever have betrayed his
father on the job
- shortly later, Eddie's father Joe arrived and confronted
Mr. White over the loyalty of Mr. Orange; after Joe accused Orange
of being a cop ("That lump of s--t's workin'
with the LAPD") Mr. White tried to defend
Orange to Joe: ("Joe, trust me on this. You've made a mistake"),
but Joe was adamant ("The cocksucker tipped off the cops and
got Mr. Brown and Mr. Blue killed...Dead as Dillinger"); the
scene evolved into a violent Mexican Standoff as all three (Joe,
White, and Eddie) drew their guns and Eddie shouted out:
"You stop pointin' that f--kin’ gun at my Dad!";
all three seemed to fire at one time - although White actually
got off two shots and both Cabots were killed, but he was also
injured
- in the film's violent conclusion -- the uninjured
Mr. Pink fled with the stashed diamonds; as Mr. White cradled Mr.
Orange in his arms, he heard Orange's simple confession that he indeed
was a cop ("I'm a cop...I'm so sorry"); as the police stormed
the warehouse after arresting Mr. Pink outdoors (he was faintly heard
surrendering off-screen), Mr. White was ordered to put his gun down:
("Freeze!...Drop the gun, man!...We're gonna blow you away!")
but disobeyed and possibly shot Mr. Orange in the head (off-screen)
- and then collapsed during more gunfire
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Mr. Brown's "Like a Virgin" Discussion
Mr. Pink On Tipping
Famous Slo-Mo Walk of Criminals During Opening Titles
Post-Heist: Bloodied Mr. Orange and Mr. White Return to Hideout
Mr. White and Mr. Pink Argue About the Failed Heist and
the Presence of a "Rat"
Mr. Pink's Post-Heist Flight Returning Gunfire
Pink and White: Guns Drawn and Deadlocked at Each
Other
The Arrival of Suspicious Psychopath Mr. Blonde
Meanwhile, Mr. Orange Was Painfully Bleeding to
Death
(Undercover Cop) Mr. Orange's Commode Story
The Pre-Heist Assignment of Color Coded Names by
Joe Cabot
Pre-Heist Planning by White and Orange
Nice Guy Eddie's Point-Blank Execution of Cop Marvin
Eddie's Disbelief of Mr. Orange's Version
The Concluding Confrontation: (l to r): Eddie, Joe, Mr.
White, and Mr. Orange (dying on floor)
Joe's Accusation That Mr. Orange Was an LAPD Officer
Guns Drawn: Mexican Stand-Off
Mr. White With His Gun Pointed at Mr. Orange's Head,
as Cops Stormed Building
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