Reservoir Dogs (R)
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Caution: potential spoilers.

This is the directorial debut of Quentin Tarantino. The movie jumps around in time a lot, which is something Tarantino would become well known for. It starts before a jewel heist, with the criminals sitting around in a diner having breakfast and some random conversation, which is rather interesting. I pretty much agree with Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) about tipping, by the way. Then we see Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), after the robbery goes awry, driving Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), who has been shot, to the rendezvous, to wait for the others, including the guy who hired them all, Joe Cabot. Oh, and Joe's son, Nice Guy Eddie (Chris Penn). I should mention that none of the criminals know each other, and they're all going by code names. At one point prior to the crime, there's an amusing argument about who should be called which color.

Mr. Pink shows up at the rendezvous, certain that someone has betrayed them (since the cops were at the scene of the crime far too soon), and that it isn't safe to stay at the warehouse. Whichever one of them was working with the cops knew about the place, so the cops would probably be there soon. Mr. White also contemplates taking Mr. Orange to a hospital, since he's dying. But they never leave. There's also talk about how crazy Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) is, since he started unnecessarily shooting people back at the crime scene. I believe Mr. Blue and Mr. Brown (Tarantino) both were killed by cops.

Well, eventually Mr. Blonde shows up at the warehouse. And he has a cop he's captured, and tortures him. And at some point Eddie shows up, and later Joe. And, um, more stuff happens. I really don't know what to say about this movie. I don't want to give anything important away, so I can't say too much. But there's lots of flashbacks, stuff that happened prior to the crime. And after the crime. We never see the crime itself. It's all vaguely confusing, and there's a ton of violence, and profanity. It's also funny and interesting and dramatic and cool. All of which one can of course expect from a Tarantino film. Oh yeah, and I really liked the song that was selected to close the film. Anyway, this film, objectively, probably deserves to be rated higher. And maybe I will raise my rating, if and when I watch it again.

Oh, I should also say I had a real hard time deciding where to include this review. Originally I put it in a section called "ultraviolence," but I decided not to keep that category. So... I could've moved the review to action/adventure, scary (psychological thriller), maybe noir or quirky or art or dramedy... I was also thinking of starting a new category for crime dramas, but I figure plenty of those I'd include in other categories anyway, so I didn't see the point. I ended up putting it under "weird," but I was never entirely happy with that choice. Eventually I started a new category called "badass," and moved it there. Later still, I added a link to this review in "film noir," but left the review itself in "badass." However, I was still never completely happy. And finally, after many years, I started a category for "crime films," moved the review there, and deleted links from both the "badass" and "noir" sections. Hopefully this is the end of the story, and I'll be forever happy with this final decision.