Perhaps the most surprising thing I found rewatching Reservoir Dogs is just how visceral it is as a viewing experience. This raised the film's budget to $1.5 million and only came about because Tarantino's producing partner Lawrence Bender had been attending acting classes and the wife of his tutor had shown the screenplay to Keitel. Tarantino was all set to shoot the film with a 16mm camera and a budget of $30'000 when Keitel not only asked if he could be in it but also produce it.After recommending the 1987 French picture Au Revoir les Enfants, the customer said " I don't want to see no reservoir dogs!"
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The film's unusual title came from a customer at the Vshoideo Archive store where Tarantino used to work and recommend little-known movies for the patrons.When Baltz ad-libbed a line about having a kid at home, Madsen almost failed to finish shooting the scene because he was so disturbed. Madsen had difficulty shooting the torture scene due to his aversion to violence and was extremely reluctant to hit Baltz.The budget was so low, in fact, that the scene were Mr Pink steals a car from a young woman could only be shot when the lights were green because they couldn't afford the police assistance to control the traffic.
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The signature black suits were provided free of charge by the designer although Buscemi wore his own black jeans instead of the trousers.
His brutal and stomach-churning torture sequence, memorably sound-tracked by Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel, has gone down in cinema history and is possibly one of the most imitated and parodied scenes ever. But for me, the most surprising performance comes from Madsen as the hopelessly psychotic Mr Blonde. Keitel and Roth have the most scenes and dialogue between them, especially once Tarantino brings in another of his trademarks - a narrative not shown in chronological order.
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Like Pulp Fiction's lead characters Vincent Vega and Jules Winfield, you befriend these guys before you realise that they are professional criminals and this suddenly makes you care about what happens.Īll the cast use this to their advantage, putting in performances that you easily buy into. It gives the film a creeping realism that you don't appreciate until after stuff hits the fan. It's easy to forget that this style of free-flowing dialogue wasn't really used in cinema much before Tarantino made it his trademark - the opening scenes are not about the heist but about the meaning behind a Madonna song, the sort of dialogue you'd have with your mates in the same situation. It's been a loooong time since I first saw Reservoir Dogs and catching up with it again recently, it is every bit and stunning and breath-taking as I remembered. Rarely does a directorial debut make such an impact the way this film does - its memorable, gripping and visceral throughout.