Reservoir Dogs (1992)

Jordan: Welcome to the Out of the Trunk Pod with Jordan and Darius. This is our movie review segment. My name is Jordan. That's Jordan to be writing on all socials.

Darius: And I'm Darius. That's Steve's all up in the area on all socials.

Jordan: This is the podcast where two friends started talking in a bar and never stopped. Today we're going to be reviewing Reservoir Dogs, starring Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Lawrence Tierney, Randy Brooks, Kirk Bates, Edward Bunker, and Quentin Tarantino, who also wrote and directed the movie. After Diamond Heist collapses into chaos, surviving criminals regroup in a warehouse and try to determine what went wrong. As suspicion spreads, alliances fray, loyalties are tested, and every conversation becomes a pressure point in Quentin Tarantino's sharp, violent, dialogue-driven crime thriller. So I'm gonna toss to you for Act 1.

Darius: Dialogue driven is an understatement. Act one is a job before the fall. Sharply dressed crew prepares for a high stakes robbery, but their limited knowledge of one another creates immediate tension beneath the cool talk, coded names and professional confidence. So I used to confidently say that the starting four run of Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown and Kill Bill, we'll count that as one movie, is the greatest four movie run for a director ever. I just I had not seen Reservoir Dogs in a while, and I must say it doesn't really hold up.

Jordan: No, it does not.

Darius: So even accounting for Reservoir Dogs being a little weaker than I remember Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill.

Jordan: No, for sure.

Darius: We're still talking about a top the top four run for me ever. So yes, up there. Let's start it off with a question, or I already started off, but the question, is it safer to do a robbery with complete strangers or with a close-knit group of friends?

Jordan: Yeah, I'd rather do it with a close-knit group of friends. That way I know who needs to do what job, who can handle what, who needs what, who can do what information, who to trust. I have a rapport with these people. I know how they think. I know what they can handle. Yeah, I'd rather do that than do it with strangers because anything could happen like in this movie or in the Dark Knight where they could snipe you to get a bigger cut.

Darius: That is true. I think it's a trick question. It is safest to do it alone. You don't. No co-defendants. I thought you were going to say don't do it at all. Well, fair. But no, the old adage, the easiest way to get away with the crime is to do it by yourself. And when you start having 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 people, something's going to go wrong, someone's going to snitch, something's going to, it's like, how many rappers are currently on trial because their friends talked? So,

Jordan: All of them.

Darius: Yeah. It's like, I'm honest, that's why I don't believe in conspiracy theories in general, because if you tell me that more than four or five people have to coordinate on something and keep it a secret, I'm like, probably it's not true. It's just not, I know people too well and like, You know, you can't agree on, like you couldn't get three people to agree on pizza toppings and you're going to get them to plan these elaborate conspiracies. I don't, I don't believe it.

Jordan: So like, yeah, yeah. I mean, just think about how, yeah, just think about how hard it is to plan a surprise birthday party for sure.

Darius: Yeah, it's just. It's just, it is.

Jordan: So you mentioned that with life changing stakes.

Darius: Life changing stakes. And then everyone has to agree on a plan. Everyone has to execute that plan without ******* up. Then everyone has to keep it a secret. And that means. And then the conspiracy will be 10, 15 years old. And I'm like, you mean to tell me for 15 years, no one ever. was trying to impress some woman and got too loose lip. No one ever had a falling out because they was talking to the same girl and then some dude got mad and went and told and no one ever got too drunk at a bar.

Jordan: And it was like, well, he did this, and this.

Darius: And no one borrowed some money and got ****** about it and decided to snitch off that. Like nothing went wrong. I'm gonna need more.

Jordan: No one got a bigger cut and then read everybody or got a smaller cut and then read everybody out.

Darius: It's just, it's hard for me to believe these things.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: Speaking of rats.

Jordan: I hear you.

Darius: What you got practical?

Jordan: Okay, so this series is going to be, it's going to sound a little crazy, but to me, Quentin Tarantino is the ditty of the film industry. the scale of the deviancy. He does a, apparently he has a weird foot thing, but whatever. I mean, he's a total self insert. Like he wants to be a movie star so bad in the same way that Diddy wanted to be a rapper. Ray likes like the Suge Knight thing was like all in the videos dancing. Okay. Come to death row type ****. Like he's always just in his movie randomly for some reason.

Darius: I thought you were going to go with these talented hack who just knows how to hire right people. I was like, I don't know about that, man, but I'm with you with that.

Jordan: Oh. Although his work is a derivative of a lot of Asian cinema. That is a real thing and valid criticism. But I was going to say, yeah, just the self-inserts. There's this famous story where he was in a movie with George Clooney, I think it's called Desperado, and they play brothers. And he directed it, and I think he wrote to me too. And I remember he called Clooney and was like, hey, so I have this movie role for you. We look alike, so we're going to play brothers. Clooney was like, what?

Darius: Oh, hey, you do not look like him. Not at all, buddy. It's not at all. So regarding the criticism of being derivative of Asian, I mean, if you like him, they say you're paying homage. If you don't, you say he's, you know, it's a criticism. I mean, that's fair. I mean, I don't. Any movie is a derivative of something, so I don't get what they don't understand why he gets it in knowing us. But, you know, I like that's true. He knows me. I think he's completely lost his fastball. Everything absolutely hateful eight has been bad, but I like him and I think his nineties run is out there with the greatest director runs ever.

Jordan: So yeah, his nineties run was legendary. The second half of Hateful 8 is really good, but I think he sticks too much to the whole nonlinear story thing where like every story didn't have to be told that way. You could have just told it straight up and it would have been entertaining. I don't know if it's just like a hacky thing where it's like I want to have a long runtime just because. It doesn't feel like that's a thing with him.

Darius: I think what you think about the lost a little bit of their tightness when his director, when his editor died, that Sally Lady.

Jordan: Oh, okay.

Darius: And so there's a clear break and they just get really long winded and less tight. And I think Sally died. I don't know when, but if you look, if I remember looking it up and I'm like, yeah, that's when the when the he lost his right hand. the person, the one person who could tell him, cut that. That's stupid. And once you lose that, you have no governor. And if you've, ever worked with a writer who's not used to being edited, it's tough. You know, that's the people who have to edit George R.R. Martin. So what else you got for act one?

Jordan: Yeah, so I do want to shout out also just the, I'm not, I don't think this movie is as legendary as everyone says it is or said it was at the time to me. at least. But I will say that it does have extreme cultural relevance. I remember I remember the intro to Laugh in My Pain, Kevin Hart's Stand on Special. He did a version of this movie in his opening sketch where he was like, Mr. Pink, Mr. Black, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, Mr., you know, whatever. So I always remember it from that. And a lot of the actors and writers and directors They came up in the 90s after this movie came out, referenced this movie because Tarantino was an unknown writer director and he wasn't going to get the movie made. So he had to write like a lot of dialogue stuff that an actor would want to do. And because he was able to cast Harvey Keitel, he was able to get his movie made. And if you ask Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, they'll tell you like, if not for Reservoir Dogs and like do the right thing, we wouldn't have written Good Will Hunting.

Darius: I mean, I understand. It's almost like playing an old video game to where you could see where it was iconic for its time. But like the controller scheme is so rated, you just kind of it's just hard to you can't put yourself in your in the body of 1992. Because I remember when I first watched this movie and I just wasn't as into movies, I absolutely loved it. And it just kind of was a little lukewarm for me when I watched it last night. I just was kind of like, it was one of those movies, some movies I watched for the pod and I don't feel the urge to grab my phone. And this was not one of those movies,

Jordan: Yeah, it kind of reminded me a little bit of Usual Suspects. This came up before that, but it like that movie was just had a little more sauce to it than this one did. I mean, granted, the budget was low, so I kind of get why you had to just have everything dialogue. But yeah, so did you have a favorite quote unquote color slash character in this movie?

Darius: I guess the main character, Tim Roth's character, mostly for a point that I get at later in the segment. But I would say his, even though he just lays on the ground sprawling around for an hour with an amount of

Jordan: blood that was screaming.

Darius: Yeah, he'd have bled out four times over. Yeah, you could tell he had no budget because that blood looks so fake and there was so much of it. He was like, dude, you bled out four times. Like you would have died.

Jordan: Right. Like at the end in the final. There's blood like on the wall. I'm like, he was 5 feet away from that wall this whole time. How the hell did that get there?

Darius: Yeah, it's he did. You could see him working with it's, to bring it back to Pokemon, like you could see the limitations of the technology at the time and you can appreciate the scale of the engineering that they did with an 8 bit megabit cartridge on their Game Boy while still acknowledging the game's ******* impossible to play today. You know, it's right. Yeah, it's just it's a tough it's a tough. watch to watch six dudes in a warehouse scream at each other. Yeah, with no.

Jordan: And it's a heist movie with no. Right. And it's a heist movie with no heist.

Darius: Right. And it's like. He says he didn't do the heist because it was like his creative director. I'm sure he just didn't have the budget for you got to get another set and then you have to get the people. You have to break the glass. You have to get the. My guess is he just didn't have the budget.

Jordan: So you've got to get the extras.

Darius: And, you know, you've already paid the actors, so let's just put them in a warehouse and act like the robbery never happened. And it'll be my artist, artist brain, you know? So it worked, though. It really did work.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: The movie works, even if I can say that it's not my favorite movie that I've watched before. So what else you got? Fract three. I mean, act one.

Jordan: I would have shot blonde the second he I would have shot blonde the second he walked into that warehouse. Any dude drinking a soda that cool after a robbery where he killed like 5 people, you got to die.

Darius: Yeah, you know, but you'd want the cool you want a cool customer in light of the high. Did they ever say how much money they were stealing?

Jordan: No, they just said it was some diamonds from Israel.

Darius: Okay. I mean, it had to have been in the millions to get all these people to do this. You ready to get attacked too?

Jordan: True. Yeah.

Darius: All right, Act 2, paranoia in the warehouse. Survivors regroup after disaster, piecing together conflicting accounts while suspicion turns the hideout into a pressure cooker, where loyalty, fear, and self-preservation collide. We'll go with you. What you got for Act 2?

Jordan: For Act 2, okay, so I have where they take the hostage for Act 2. So I guess Honestly, this one, I just have like one question that kind of summarized the whole thing for me. What was Mr. Blonde's agenda? Because I just I don't get anything that he did. I don't understand why he did anything that he did. Just like nothing didn't make sense. I still don't like. I'm like, did I miss something? Was he trying to, like, throw people off the scent as to what they were doing? I just didn't get it.

Darius: My suspicion is, well, I don't think it was explained, but my suspicion is people have. People were introduced to Quinn with Pulp Fiction, which is an all time top 10 classic. And they sort of retconned how they feel about Reservoir Dogs. That's a, yeah. And it's like, I have a bit where I'm like, sushi is one giant game of telephone where no one, we're all just pretending to like it. This movie might be a giant game of telephone. We're all just like, Man, Reservoir Dogs, that **** was, you know what you're supposed to say about it, but it's not, yeah, right, It's like, 'cause I'm, it's hard just you, they don't show just heist and they're, it's a, yeah. It's a movie about trust. And it's like you were repeating what you heard from a game of telephone.

Jordan: 100%. It's yeah, I'm just like, it's like people like, oh, no, you don't get it. You don't get it. It's like, no, I get it. That's the that's the problem. Yeah. It just felt like a really hollow script. Like these characters don't really have a lot of distinct, distinct things about them. Yeah. I mean, the most interesting thing about them is their nicknames. like I don't even with the color thing, it's like we spend only one day with them in this course of the story. Even then, it's hard to remember who's what color, because it's like, okay, I'm like,

Darius: which character, which the actor?

Jordan: Oh, yeah, Michael Madsen.

Darius: It's telling that When most people reference this movie, they reference the diner tape, the diner banter about tipping, which is in the first 10 minutes of the movie. And I suspect it's because they cut the **** off after that scene. Have you seen Pulp Fiction? Yeah. You see that scene about the tipping? It's the first nine minutes. Did you watch anything after that?

Jordan: Yeah. Right. The way the camera panned around all of them, it was so cinematic.

Darius: It's a good commentary on tipping. It's like, okay, cool. I got that. 9 minutes into the movie. Do you have anything else for it? It is the most compelling thing in the movie. Right.

Jordan: And by the way, that conversation had nothing to do with it really is, honestly. And it's funny because it had nothing to do with the plot at all. They never came back around in any way, shape or form. It was just like. They feel like he just needed an icebreaker to open the movie.

Darius: Yeah, it's, you know, it had nothing to do with the plot because there was no plot. I will give him this. Correct. The flashback where Tim Roth is explaining the art of being undercover and repeating a lie and making sure it is overarching. I found that compelling because often I did too. Often liars forget that they have to have an overarching umbrella over the lie and they will tell lies that make sense there, but then a lie later doesn't, once you compare them to, they don't add up. And so, it was interesting to watch them explain the art of lying in the sense that like, no, you have to rehearse it because it has to feel like the truth. It has to feel like second nature. And you have to make sure that when you tell your story in its entirety, the lie you told in line 3 lines up with what you're saying in line 11. You know, in book editing, a lot of book editors, a lot of their feedback will be something that happened in the winter doesn't make sense with what you said. It happened in the spring. And so like that happened.

Jordan: Okay, got you.

Darius: Yeah, things out. And so it happened. And what is creative writing, if not writing what is essentially a lie. And so you're stringing it along and you just forget what you said already. And so, you know, that was a good, I found that compelling to explain the art of lying. So that is, there's some positive feedback for the book. Yeah, I got that.

Jordan: I agree too. I like that scene too, because when he brought up the point about like, you have to know, be able to tell was it a hand, paper towel dispenser or was it an air dryer? Because the story he told where he's in the bathroom with the weed, it has to be an air fryer, air fryer, air dryer or something that makes sense because that would fan the fumes of the weed, which would get the dog to going crazy. which would make the situation all that much more tense,

Darius: And that's something a bad liar would overlook. And so you have to. Right. I found that was that was compelling. That and the tipping scene are the two compelling things in this movie.

Jordan: You know what annoyed me in this movie though?

Darius: What?

Jordan: Yeah, so what I found annoying is like just the random racism in this movie. Like, have you noticed Tarantino just kind of throws it in some of his movies where he just like, they just randomly drop hard ERs and it's not, it's not Django.

Darius: You know, I do notice it. doesn't bother me. This is fiction. It's a bunch of white dudes who are criminals in the 90s robbing banks. It doesn't strike me as odd that they would use the N-word.

Jordan: Yeah, that's true.

Darius: I have this ongoing Twitter bit when I was like, so much of the discourse is driven by people who don't realize fiction is fake. It's like, you know, it doesn't bother me. These are fictional characters and it is a close knit, all white group of criminals who are probably They're probably racist. I mean, that just, it just doesn't strike me as out of.

Jordan: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's true.

Darius: You know, so I mean, I do see what people mean with his gratuitous use of the word. And sometimes it does feel a little cartoonish, but yeah, it just doesn't bother me. I don't really, it doesn't really bother me. To be honest with you. It never feels like the character wouldn't use the word. And also, you know, it, you, Not you, but a lot of people. You can't on one hand claim that their racism is pervasive and everywhere and never want to see it depicted. Like you have to kind of be everywhere.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: So, you know, it's, there's another point of contention I have with something else that's in movies, but I'm not putting that in the pot. So.

Jordan: Okay.

Darius: Yeah, I'll tell you that off air. But yeah, so anyways, yeah, I mean, I understand the critique. And it's not an invalid critique. I just, it just doesn't bother me. So.

Jordan: I hear you. Oh, ****. I forgot. We're, wait, we're still in Act 2 or Act 3. I'm tripping.

Darius: Act 2 and sign. Act 2.

Jordan: We're in Act 2. Okay, yeah. The scene where Blonde, the crazy one, goes off and just like slices dude's ear off. And then he's about to like light him on fire. Again, it just didn't make sense because I'm like, you kidnapped this guy in theory to get information only to burn him alive.

Darius: Well, he was crazy. And that's probably why you don't do crimes with psychopaths. But yeah, I don't really, honestly, that part of the movie is a little hazy for me because that's probably when I was scrolling Twitter. I was like, it's just. It's just six white dudes yelling in a garage. And I'm just, how much of this can I watch? It's, it really is.

Jordan: It is. It is. Honestly, it's just.

Darius: And then Tim Roth is.

Jordan: On the ground with a.

Darius: Bunch of saint blood just mailing it in, just yelling in the worst acting you could see.

Jordan: It's just not even bad acting. It's the bad accent for me.

Darius: It's just. Yeah. You know, it's a rough watch. It is short. That's good.

Jordan: That's the one really good thing about this movie is that it is short. And things do happen in the third act because for the first 70 minutes, nothing really happens.

Darius: Well, speaking of third act, trust runs out as accusations harden and options disappear. The remaining players confront the cost of secrets, loyalty and pride in a finale built on tension and irreversible choices. You know, it's kind of clever to do a robbery movie that isn't about a robbery. It's actually about. So it's kind of a prisoner's dilemma because it's like. You're building this thing where you're testing people, but everyone has a personal incentive to lie. But if nobody lies, we all get away with it.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: But to me, that's just every crime, you know, like every criminal organization. if you're caught and you're in a situation, you have a personal. I just don't think this is as groundbreaking as people wanted to believe.

Jordan: Yeah, and it's not that it's not like it's one of the earlier heist or crime movies. So I truly don't get the lore behind it. I mean, I know it was 92 and I wasn't, I was born, but I wasn't there, you know, in the theaters. But I just don't get it because like there are certain movies you watch no matter how old they are. And you're like, I get why back then they were like, oh wow, that's crazy. Like, I mean, I remember watching the Cat Burger with Cary Grant. It came out in like the 60s. So a heist movie where like one of the guys is a cop is kind of standard. I don't get it.

Darius: I think, I really do think my theory that people love Pulp Fiction because it's great and retcon this one. Yeah, it's like.

Jordan: Yeah, I think so too.

Darius: It's like your favorite sitcom. You go back and watch season one. You're like, yeah, they were still warming up. You know, it was like, you know, it was a little shaky.

Jordan: Right.

Darius: It wasn't.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: It doesn't matter what sitcom. It's specifically for sitcoms. It's like the office. Yeah, specifically for sitcoms because you have to part of the joke is being on the inside and knowing the characters. Those first seasons. are often they don't know each other. Yeah, a bit choppy. And this is like season one of Quentin Tarantino's discography. It's like.

Jordan: Correct.

Darius: Yeah, I can see the makings of the the genius. But, you know, this was this was it wasn't fleshed out yet. And I think like most great things, we retcon the beginning of them. So no. Anything else for act three?

Jordan: That's true. Yeah. Oh, would you do anything different with the ending? if you wrote the script.

Darius: Well, yes, I would make it good. So, you know, what specifically I would do differently, I don't know, but just having them all shoot each other and fall down and insane.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: To answer your question, yes. What would I do differently? I don't know, because I would have making I would have changed so much leading up to that point. But yes, I would have made it. What would you what would you have done differently?

Jordan: I would have I think I would have had the boss guy, the bald dude was got named Nice Guy Eddie. I think I would have had him be revealed to be a rat in the end. And maybe I can make off with the money with the diamonds.

Darius: Well, Jack Nicholas and the departed type action. I'm with it. Yeah, if they had like revealed him to be like some inside person in the sense that like, not a cop, but maybe whatever, the manager of whatever place they were robbing or something like that. yeah, Just give me something that makes me feel like I didn't waste any money. Yeah, just like I just, I just watch these dudes yell in the garage for 60 minutes and you just roll credits on me. **** you. Yeah.

Jordan: And then they just shoot each other. That's it. Like, I haven't seen the weasel.

Darius: But I feel like yeah I had I don't remember it being this mid to be honest with you.

Jordan: Yeah and even the fact that like the most the least interesting guy just walked away with everything.

Darius: Yeah so what else you got for act three man?

Jordan: Um that's all she wrote Tarantino.

Darius: So I mean, I do have a, I know your answer to this, but is this movie good or is it just pretentious?

Jordan: Yeah, I think it's pretentious. And everything we know about Grentin Tarantino, he's even more pretentious now, but he was younger than so he probably was more pretentious because he was less accomplished, if that makes sense. Yeah, this is a very pretentious movie. It's like, I'm going to make this movie about people while not actually studying people in the movie.

Darius: I agree. You can be highbrow, but it has to be good. And this just isn't very good. So with that, what do you rate it?

Jordan: Yeah, the intro was cool. I did like the third act. I'm going to give it I'm going to give it two and a half stars.

Darius: Oh, two and a half for me as well.

Jordan: Okay.

Darius: I can't give it a three because I don't want to watch it again. And my own personal rule is you can't get a three if I don't want to watch you again. So 2.5, he stumbled out of the gate a little bit, and I'm glad that whoever was around back then loved it, and he got to go on one of the greatest director runs of all time.

Jordan: Yeah.

Darius: Shout out to him. All right. Thanks for listening. My name is Darius. That's D's I love the area on all socials.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan. That's Jordan Rewriting on all socials.

Darius: Please rate, like, and subscribe. We're at Out the Trunk Pod on all socials. That is Out the Trunk Pod on all socials.

Jordan: And for any ongoing movie recommendations, feel free to reach out to us via e-mail. That's outthetrunkpod at gmail.com. Again, outthetrunkpod at gmail.com. That's a wrap. Thanks for coming to the movies with us. Come back next week for another episode.

Darius: Thank y'all.