TV tip: A perfect crime thriller from probably the most influential filmmaker of our time – Cinema News

Probably no other filmmaker has had more influence on how thriller, crime and action films are made and viewed in the last three decades than Quentin Tarantino. Later this evening, his first directorial work, “Reservoir Dogs,” will be shown on free TV – an undisputed classic. If you don’t know it, you should definitely tune in. Everyone else will probably do so anyway, because this great piece of genre cinema can be seen again and again.

“Reservoir Dogs” airs today, September 22, 2024 at 10:05 p.m. on Tele 5. Repeats will be shown on the night of September 24th to 25th at 2:05 a.m. and on the night of September 28th to 29th at 2:20 a.m. Alternatively, you can stream your title after the first TV broadcast until September 30th for free in the Tele-5 media library and at no extra charge as part of the MagentaTV flat rate subscription. It is also available as a (4K) Blu-ray with various worthwhile extras, DVD and paid video-on-demand:

“Reservoir Dogs” on Amazon*

If you are an Amazon Prime customer, you can also watch the Tarantino masterpiece there stream at no extra charge*. All you have to do is sign up for the seven-day free trial of the FilmLegenden channel. If you do not want to cancel, you will be charged 3.99 euros per month after the trial period.

In the title roles you can see Harvey Keitel (“The Piano”), Tim Roth (“The Incredible Hulk”), Michael Madsen (“Thelma & Louise”), Steve Buscemi (“The Big Lebowski”), Edward Bunker (“The Running Man”), Chris Penn (“True Romance”), Hollywood tough guy Lawrence Tierney (“Prizzi’s Honor”) and Tarantino himself.

“Reservoir Dogs”: This is the story

Eight men are having breakfast in a diner. They joke about all the money they will make from the diamond heist they are planning. Their employer, Joe Cabot (Tierney), is a seasoned criminal who insists that the men keep their true identities to themselves and address each other only by their code names: Mr. White (Keitel), Mr. Orange (Roth), Mr. Blonde (Madsen), Mr. Pink (Buscemi), Mr. Blue (Bunker), and Mr. Brown (Tarantino). Also along for the ride is Cabot’s son, Nice Guy Eddie (Penn).

But then the coup goes wrong. The police obviously knew about it – is one of them a traitor? One of the men died in the shootout with the cops, another has disappeared. Mr. White, Mr. Pink and the seriously injured Mr. Orange hide in a warehouse. There they try to reconstruct what happened, blaming each other. Then Mr. Blonde suddenly arrives and explains that he has found a kidnapped policeman in his trunk outside the door…

The prototype for “Pulp Fiction”

Novice director Tarantino and his later regular producer Lawrence Bender had initially planned “Reservoir Dogs” as a black and white low-budget film. When Harvey Keitel, who had become a veritable star thanks to major appearances in Martin Scorsese’s “The Crucible” and “Taxi Driver”, among others, got his hands on the script through a roundabout route, everything suddenly changed. Keitel was keen to take part, offered to be a co-producer and quickly helped to raise a budget of two million dollars. The result was a brilliant indie film that launched the career of a true genius.

“Reservoir Dogs” already offers many of the characteristics that still make up a typical Tarantino film today: stylized, excessive violence, long dialogues interspersed with black humor and pop culture references, music from the 60s/70s and a non-linear narrative structure. Some film critics and analysts describe the work as a kind of prototype of the mega-hit “Pulp Fiction” that followed two years later, one of the most copied and referenced films in recent cinema history.

In the FILMSTARTS review, which awarded 5 out of 5 stars, our author Ulrich Behrens describes how Tarantino revolutionizes both the classic tragedy and the heist thriller without destroying their cornerstones. By not showing the disastrously failed robbery at all, but letting the audience participate in what happens afterwards, he raises the tension curve steeply. Together with the characters, we find out what happened using flashbacks as we piece together the puzzle from the pieces revealed in the film. Doing this is still an enormously satisfying experience and one you shouldn’t miss.

But be warned: some scenes are pretty brutal. When Tarantino showed his work at the genre festival in Sitges, Spain, he saw a prominent fellow director flee the hall during a particularly raunchy passage. Find out who it was and how the master himself reacted in the article:

This cult film by Quentin Tarantino was too hard even for a horror icon: she fled the cinema!

*The links to Amazon’s offer are so-called affiliate links. If you make a purchase via these links, we receive a commission. This has no effect on the price.