Tarantino’s debut is still one of his best films. The opening sequence has been often imitated and referenced, but it does showcase Tarantino’s use of banter, natural dialogue and pop culture to bring his characters to life. Here it works well, immediately giving the audience a sense of all the important personalities within the film and the relationships between them. By dropping us into the aftermath of the heist, the film’s strength is in the use of flashback to build intrigue over what happened, but equally important is the hook that there might be an insider. This allows Tarantino to gradually develop his characters in the flashbacks beyond simply focusing on how the dilemma they find themselves in will be solved. Buscemi and Keitel in particular stand out and whilst Madsen has repeated himself ad nauseam in other films, he is still effective here. The soundtrack and costume design all serve to emphasise how hip and cool the characters are, but this is punctuated with the violence that remind us they are brutal too. Its this juxtaposition of coolness and violence that marked the film out as something different, no more so than in the still shocking scene of Madsen torturing someone. Some of the flashback scenes do occasionally outstay their welcome, though there is a lot of humour drawn out from them and the authenticity in his dialogue that Tarantino appears to strive for is sometimes stretched as characters vie to show who is top dog. But these minor quibbles don’t stop this from being a tightly edited and well paced crime thriller.
Review by Simon MasseyVIP 11BlockedParent2014-07-28T08:57:39Z
Tarantino’s debut is still one of his best films. The opening sequence has been often imitated and referenced, but it does showcase Tarantino’s use of banter, natural dialogue and pop culture to bring his characters to life. Here it works well, immediately giving the audience a sense of all the important personalities within the film and the relationships between them. By dropping us into the aftermath of the heist, the film’s strength is in the use of flashback to build intrigue over what happened, but equally important is the hook that there might be an insider. This allows Tarantino to gradually develop his characters in the flashbacks beyond simply focusing on how the dilemma they find themselves in will be solved. Buscemi and Keitel in particular stand out and whilst Madsen has repeated himself ad nauseam in other films, he is still effective here. The soundtrack and costume design all serve to emphasise how hip and cool the characters are, but this is punctuated with the violence that remind us they are brutal too. Its this juxtaposition of coolness and violence that marked the film out as something different, no more so than in the still shocking scene of Madsen torturing someone. Some of the flashback scenes do occasionally outstay their welcome, though there is a lot of humour drawn out from them and the authenticity in his dialogue that Tarantino appears to strive for is sometimes stretched as characters vie to show who is top dog. But these minor quibbles don’t stop this from being a tightly edited and well paced crime thriller.