He’s an instantly recognisable figure in the landscape of contemporary cinema, one of the few directors who has achieved the kind of household-name fame that seems impossible nowadays. When Quentin Tarantino’s directorial debut Reservoir Dogs tore onto the scene in 1992, its playful violence and its guttural poetics of the LA underworld shook up the heist genre – and introduced the world to one of 20th-century cinema’s last auteurs.
The violence – shocking at the time – is boring to discuss today, but something that does live on is the high-octane trip of revisiting this speedball of a film. Tarantino’s reimagining of the good cop vs bad cop format, with a B-movie overcoat, still impresses, as a botched bank robbery turns into a colourful game of spot-the-informant.
With a cast boasting Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen and Tarantino himself – and accompanied by some genius strokes of popular music – this is a restoration you don’t want to miss. ★★★★★
