All Critics (49)
|
Top Critics (13)
|
Fresh (54)
|
Rotten (2)
|
DVD (44)
Tarantino, in Reservoir Dogs, has made a nihilist comedy about how human nature will always undercut the best-laid plans.
Undeniably impressive pic grabs the viewer by the lapels and shakes hard, but it also is about nothing other than a bunch of macho guys and how big their guns are.
It's unclear whether this macho thriller does anything to improve the state of the world or our understanding of it, but it certainly sets off enough rockets to hold and shake us for every one of its 99 minutes.
It's dynamite on a short fuse.
You may not like the terms Tarantino sets, but you have to admit he succeeds on them.
A small, modestly budgeted crime movie of sometimes dazzling cinematic pyrotechnics and over-the- top dramatic energy.
Exuberance over violence is mostly reined in. Coiled male panic and ricocheting accusations carry the action. At its best, at a time before Tarantino became all show, Reservoir Dogs reveals masculinity as a bloody, savage, two-faced performance.
Undoubtedly one of the best films of the 1990s, and probably one of the best directorial debuts of all time, Reservoir Dogs announced the arrival of one of contemporary cinema's hottest talents -- and he came out shooting.
Raw and bloody. For adults.
An action movie comprised almost entirely of words.
In 1992 Quentin Tarantino did something that hadn't been done since 1986 with David Lynch's "Blue Velvet;" he reinvented cinema.
Tarantino was slated to direct the masterpiece that was True Romance but took on this project which might be the best directorial debut in years!
A highly cinematic blast for those who can stomach its brutality...Like Glengarry Glen Ross with guns.
Structurally, Tarantino may have borrowed from Kubrick's crimers and Hong Kong films, but for a debut, it's brilliantly written and acted and it captures the paranoia of white working-class men, threatened by gays, women and other groups.
Quentin Tarantino came out of nowhere with perhaps the most astonishing, explosive American debut film since John Cassavetes' Shadows.
This is a savage gangster story with all the Tarantino trappings, including enough blood for a couple of Jaws movies.
More Critic Reviews
63%
——
97%
Top Critic
