Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs

Director: Quentin Tarantino
Released: 15th January 1993 (UK)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Plot: After a simple jewellery heist goes terribly wrong, the surviving criminals begin to suspect that one of them is a police informant
User ratings: 8.4/10 (reference: IMDB)
Awards: 8 wins and 5 nominations

The introduction to “Reservoir Dogs” is opened with a group of your typical thriller gangsters sitting in a café. The main thriller aspects we see to the opening scene is the use that they’re all wearing the same suits, this instantly tells you that they are a gang. A group of people together can be intimidating for the audience. The use of each character smoking gives of a sense of maturity which makes the audience feel small compared to them.

The first camera shot you see is over the shoulder whilst rotating around the table, this technique comes with advantages and disadvantages. The use of the camera rotating around the table means that you can see each of the characters faces. The disadvantage of this technique is that every two seconds you’re getting someone’s back covering up the camera completely which can be slightly distracting.

Each character in the opening scene has hair slicked back or styled very neatly, they have either got expensive watches or rings on. This is saying that these people are rich, they are successful criminals. The way the characters are dressed up comes across intimidating which is a great thriller aspect to the film.

The use of lighting in the film is just natural daylight coming through, nothing that’s been made up, this effect helps give of a natural environment. As we carry on through the film, we appear to have an “alpha male” the character bellow is your typical gangster, his suit and his hair swished back gives of that gothic, thriller image. During the scene, he says “You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologise”. When we hear him say that, we know that he is dangerous and is not to be messed with, he comes across to the audience as a threatening person, this helps the film to give of its thriller genre.



The picture below shows them walking out of the café, as you can see together they are dangerous and threatening, helping the film with its thriller aspects. The use of the suits and glasses comes across the audience as confusing, maybe this is what the director intended to do, scaring the audience as they cant work out who is who, making them feel intimidated.

The camera angle is a long shot, we can see the whole of the bodies and the background environment, this technique helps the audience to engage with the characters and they come across dangerous and criminal.



At the end of the introduction, we get an introduction to each character, the faces come up on a close up and the actors name appears next to them. This scene is a great opening scene, providing a lot of thriller detail and aspects. From the opening scene you can already tell that there are criminal and powerful and not to be messed with.