The Movie Diorama
In terms of directorial debuts, this is a solid entry that assured Tarantino as one of the best directors working today. Now, as most of you know, I'm not a big fan of Tarantino. Just not my cup of tea so to speak. Yet this was a good crime thriller. After a heist goes terribly wrong, the group of professional robbers make haste and convene at a remote warehouse. During this time, they try to find out who snitched on them to the police. In glorious (see what I did there...) Tarantino fashion, there is a bucket full of blood and a script full of profanity that infuses rather well with the story. Fortunately the narrative is not linear, so we're flipping back and forth between character introductions and the aftermath of the heist, to keep the plot's pace rapid and fresh. The characters themselves may not be completely memorable, but their names are. Mr White, Mr Brown, Mr Blonde, Mr Orange, Mr Pink and so on. With one humorous scene involving a small argument about the particular choice of "Mr Pink" (who was played excellently by Steve Buscemi). It's a story that is dialogue driven, like most of his films, so the wit and dark humour is conveyed through sharp exaggerative banter between these characters. It works, stupendously well actually. Harvey Keitel was the most enjoyable to watch, and finally we have a film with Tim Roth that I actually like. Hooray! Quentin himself should not act in his films. Why? Because he is abysmal. Makes me cringe every time I see him. The torture scene is filled with gore and is probably the most engaging scene in the film. Don't get me wrong, it's a compelling script. But I find the execution extremely, how to put this, noisy. I like subtlety. Sometimes less is more which is why I'm not his biggest fan. Atleast it's not 3 hours long, my brain would've been numbed if that were the case. However in saying that, I find this to be one of his better films (behind Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained) with a punchy script filled with plenty of violence. A damn good directorial debut.
