Talk:Reservoir Dogs

Mr. Pink (POSSIBLE SPOILER)

I think it's intentionally left open as to whether he survives. In the final 3 minutes of the film, just before the police burst in on White and Orange, you hear a lot of yelling and some (possible) gunshots. I always intepret that as Mr. Pink being killed by the police task force just outside the warehouse.

I agree. After the shooting, Pink goes out the door. White then slowly creeps over to Orange, and we hear sirens all the time, suggesting that the police are still arriving. That'd give Pink time to get away. --Spug 00:53, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to disagree, but I'm not brave enough to change the article just yet. According to the IMDb trivia page for this movie, Quentin Tarantino himself has said that Mr. Pink does survive. I know that the IMDb isn't always reliable, but when I watched the ending, I though that I could definitely hear the sound of Mr. Pink surrendering and being arrested. Cswrye 20:38, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

If the audio track of this scene is fiddled with, Mr Pink does say "I give up" after the shots have been fired by the police. Look at the "What happened to Mr. Pink?" link. JustADuck 02:34, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I concur... I've listened to the audio of that scene several times and Mr. Pink's voice can definitely be heard saying something to the effect of "I give up" after the shots have been fire. BinaryTed 16:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the audio might be tricky but i have found the script on the internet a this adress: http://www.godamongdirectors.com/scripts/reservoir.shtml and it clearly states that Mr.Pink surrenders before the cops start shooting him

I am not a user - 22:50, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Why is this film called Reservoir Dogs?

I remember there being a line about dogs, but where does the reservoir come from?

This question is answered directly in the article, just above the table of contents. - Corix 22:05, May 13, 2005 (UTC)

No, it isn't. It appears to have been removed. - AWF

Hmmm. The whole au revoir/straw dogs thing sounds fishy to me. I distinctly remember back when this film came out reading an interview with QT (can't remember where) in which he explained the title: He said that near where he grew up there was a disused/dried up reservoir which was home to a motley pack of stray dogs. As a kid Tarantino used to watch these mean scrappy mean-looking animals hanging out and interacting, foraging, etc - the behaviour of the group of dogs included frequent snarling standoffs and occasional outbursts of violence, sometimes ending with one of the dogs dead at the hands (paws?) of the others. In the interview QT said that when writing the script the group dynamics of the characters reminded him of the pack of dogs he saw as a kid. Made sense to me.SidneyStratton 04:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Contradiction

The section below was removed from the article because it contradicted the following material. It's been some time since I saw the film, but I think I left the right stuff in. WBardwin 11:02, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

"Mr. Orange tells them that Mr. Blonde went insane and was going to burn the officer alive. Eddie, furious at Mr. Orange, pulls out his gun and shoots the injured officer several times in the chest, killing him."

"criminal turned author"

"Tarantino also has a minor role as does former professional criminal turned author Eddie Bunker"

what's "criminal turned author"? an author who became a criminal? I'm no native speaker, and this sounds really odd to me (clem 20:26, 13 May 2005 (UTC))

A criminal, who "turned into" (became) a professional author. Richmond Review interview with Bunker. — Jeandré, 2005-05-1406:29z

city on fire

The article says Tarantino "borrowed much of the plot [of city of fire] as well as many of the scenes", which is overstating it, to put it mildly. I own both films, and they're not nearly as similar as some people would like to believe. I'll take a crack at rewording it, with specific details. --Misterwindupbird

original research

The Analysis section seems to me to be unencyclopedic and in violation of wikipedia's no original research policy. I'd argue it should be removed, maybe with an external link or two in its place (ie source-based research). As it stands, it's mostly one person's interpretation of the film. --Misterwindupbird 18:12, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

• Since nobody leapt to the defence of the section, I've moved it here. Go ahead and revert if you disagree, but please justify it in terms of the no original research policy. --Misterwindupbird 18:31, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

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Analysis

As is stated above, the jewel heist itself is not shown; the majority of the film's conflict takes place between the criminals themselves as they attempt to sort out the events of the day, while the tension among them mounts. The jewel heist can be considered a McGuffin. The narration makes extensive use of flashbacks. For instance, at one point, the identity of the undercover cop, or "the rat" as the robbers put it, is revealed to the audience but not the protagonists.

The film quickly gained notoriety for the amount of profanity in the dialogue, and for the level of violence it contained. However, Tarantino has pointed out that there are actually very few scenes of overt violence shown: for instance, in the infamous "ear torture" scene, the camera focuses away from the actors at the critical point (instead scanning a wall on which the words "Watch Your Head" have been spray-painted).

By the standard of mainstream Hollywood action movies, the body count is quite low: there are 11 fatal shootings in the film. What is perhaps unusual about the violence in the film is the combination of gritty (and gory) realism with quirky touches, such as 1970s pop music, not least during the ear-slicing scene. The film takes place during K-Billy's "Super Sounds of the '70s" week-end radio marathon. Reservoir Dogs has been praised for its extremely creative usage of this during the story telling, using popular but completely context-inappropriate songs such as "Little Green Bag", "Stuck in the Middle With You" and "Coconut" during scenes where they should never have fit, and yet somehow manage to perfectly.

The film is a reversal of the traditional whodunit; instead of focusing on the police trying to figure out who committed a crime, it focuses on criminals who are trying to identify the police informer among them.

Although all of the men are career criminals, each has his own separate set of ethics. We see them debate the importance of tipping waitresses and avoiding civilian casualties, the morality of indiscriminate sex, as well as the ethics of life-and-death situations.

Characters die because they are loyal: either to a friend (White dies because he feels responsible for Orange), to the Cabot gang (Blonde dies because he is about to kill the cop who could have implicated them all if allowed to live, Eddie dies defending his father), or to the police (Orange dies because he refuses to call in assistance for his injuries, placing his orders to get Joe Cabot foremost). Mr. Pink, who believes that loyalty is a liability and that "taking sides" is unprofessional and childish, is the only character that could have possibly survived. However, he does get shot and arrested by the Police just before they burst into the warehouse. This can be heard in the background during the scene of Mr. Orange's confession to Mr. White, although the dialogue between Mr. Pink and the police is very quiet and gets drowned out in places. A full transcript of this off-screen activity can be found here: What Happened To Mr. Pink

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Why is this article so painful to read?

Ie: what's witht he "Flashback:"s every line?

Also, is it really useful to have such a huge plot summary? The thing is about 7 screen long. At this point, it's no longer a summary, it is the plot. --Misterwindupbird 18:35, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed regarding the excessive synopsis here. I know that people will scream bloody murder if we take information out of an article, but this seems unencyclopedic--what other movie or book around here has this much plot summary dedicated to it? SS451 07:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Maybe they should.

"It is often informative to include plot summaries (and other spoilers) in articles on works of fiction. However, please keep them reasonably short, as the point of Wikipedia is to describe the works, not simply summarize them. It is generally appropriate for a plot summary to remain part of the main article, not a lengthy page of its own." - Wikipedia:Notability (fiction)#Fiction in Wikipedia. -- Jeandré, 2006-02-06t20:12z

Ordering issues with the plot summary

The plot summary has a number of errors, all of which have to do with mentioning details before they're revealed in the film. For example, Mr. Orange claims that Mr. Blonde was going to kill them all after the cop gets killed, not before. In addition, during the flashback we don't know that Mr. Pink's valise has diamonds in it, nor does Mr. White tell Mr. Pink he's from Milwaukee. AaronSw 02:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Background radio play

Someone should explain what the "background radio play" is. Is there a transcript available? Where does it appear in the film? AaronSw 02:48, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Nice Guy Eddie

"Tarantino (who had been working as a video store clerk in Los Angeles) was originally going to shoot it with his friends on a budget of $30,000 on 16mm with producer Lawrence Bender playing Nice Guy Eddie." Makes perfect sense to me. Then Keitel put up the money and they were able to hire Chris Penn (R.I.P.) to play the role. No?

I'm sorry. I misread the sentence. I suppose it's correct. Tskoge 01:46, 29 January 2006 (UTC)