What is considered Quentin Tarantino's best film? The cult favorite that became his creative blueprint

Which film comes to mind when you think of Quentin Tarantino? Most of you might think of Pulp Fiction, and younger Tarantino fans might think of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, but only the OGs know where it all started. Before Tarantino became a mascot for trunk shots, mind-bending stories, and feet, he was a video store clerk with an itch to create history and scripts that would redefine cinema.

The script for Reservoir Dogs (1992), his directorial debut, and the film that paved the way for him to become one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. Reservoir Dogs is a classic Tarantino film with blood-soaked action, profanity, memorable dialogue, and entertainment. The film was lit even before it was a thing.

Pulp Fiction may be his magnum opus, but Reservoir Dogs will be Quentin Tarantino's cult classic that started it all and created the blueprint for Tarantino's Cinematic Universe.

Reservoir Dogs: A Quentin Tarantino Classic

Reservoir Dogs is a film about a heist, but Ralph Waldo Emerson once highlighted that the journey is better than the destination, and Quentin Tarantino took that personally. Reservoir Dogs tells a story about a heist, but that is not the main focus of the film. Viewers never actually see the heist. It's all about the lead-up to the heist and the chaos that follows.

The film opens with seven guys sitting in a diner in black suits and discussing Madonna's 'Like a Virgin,' commenting on the tipping etiquette and everything wrong in life. One of the guys, Mr. Brown, delivers an interesting theory about Madonna that would even make her question her life.

Then the screen cuts to the chaos where Mr. Orange is bleeding out in the backseat of a car and is screaming, with Mr. White trying to calm him down. The gang regroups at an empty warehouse to assess what went wrong and who among them is trying to double-cross the rest.

The cast and their code names

The characters' real names are never given in the film. For the entirety of the film's duration, they are known and called by their code names - Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and Mr. White (Harvey Keitel).

This technique backfires horribly. In the end, they end up knowing a little too much about one another. Mr. White is a level-headed veteran, Mr. Pink is an angry capitalist who hates tipping, and Mr Blonde is a psychopath. The film is memorable in many ways. Michael Madsen as Mr. Blonde is chilling, entertaining, and brilliant.

Mr. Orange bleeding out like a faucet was one of the most entertaining scenes of the movie. Tim Roth's slow descent into madness because of his moral choice between loyalty and survival, all the while trying not to die due to excessive blood loss, should have given him all the accolades.

The structure of the movie

Reservoir Dogs is designed to let the viewer play detective and feel fully immersed in the film, as if they are one of the guys. The viewer, along with the seven men, questions everything and trusts no one.

Quentin Tarantino broke many conventional rules while making this movie. The nonlinear structure of the movie shows the aftermath of a job gone wrong, and slowly making sense of it through flashbacks keeps you on your toes right to the end. Getting to know who these men are and what brought them here, all the while trying to figure out who ratted them out, is a thrill to watch.

The famous scene

Now let's talk about the famous scene without which Reservoir Dogs is incomplete, the Stuck in the Middle with You scene. The viewers squirmed, the timid fainted, and Tarantino's reputation as a badass director was cemented. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then here is a breakdown of what happens:

In the scene, Mr. Blonde is seen torturing a kidnapped cop with a razor. He starts by playing 'Stuck in the Middle with You' by the Stealers Wheel and dances to it with the razor still in hand. He starts to taunt the cop with the razor, and the camera pans away. When it zooms back, you see Mr. Blonde casually holding the cop's ear in his hand.

This scene defines the film's aura - playful, thrilling, and brutal. The violence in the film isn't there for the spectacle; instead, it's an integral part of the story. The gore is part of the anticipation, waiting for Madsen to do his thing and hearing the poor cop scream. It is sadistic, but it is one of the most important scenes of the film.

The Production of Reservoir Dogs

Reservoir Dogs was made with a production budget of $1.2 million, something that would be Tony's hairstyle budget for a Marvel film. The movie may be cheap, but Quentin Tarantino made it in a way that would put any mainstream big-budget film to shame.

The dialogues, the characters, the explosions, and the script itself are so electrifying that they make Reservoir Dogs one of the best films ever made. And the cherry on top? An amazing soundtrack. The faux-radio DJ track is used to introduce each character, and K-Billy's "Super Sound of the Seventies" adds to the grandeur of the film.

Reservoir Dogs: The Blueprint

Reservoir Dogs was the first draft of what Quentin Tarantino would eventually become. Many people know him from his more polished movies like Pulp Fiction, Inglorious Bastards, Django Unchained, and more recently, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. But Reservoir Dogs is where it all began. It is raw, unfiltered Tarantino.

It has everything that you would typically see in a Quentin Tarantino film - nonlinear storytelling, dialogue with pop culture references, an incredible amount of violence, and unusual casting. Everything Tarantino has done since then is just a better version of this movie. It also paved the way for indie filmmakers to take a chance on their luck.

The cult classic status

Since its release, Reservoir Dogs has cemented its name in history books as a cinematic marvel. Its growth from a small-budget indie movie to one of Hollywood's finest is profound. It has been studied in film schools, dissected frame by frame by aspiring filmmakers. The film aged like fine wine, each dialogue has been etched into the minds of the fans, and a part of each character lives among Quentin Tarantino fans.

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Quentin Tarantino might be remembered for his many other marvels, but let's not forget that Reservoir Dogs was his debut in the debutant league of Hollywood. It is the film that makes everyone ask 'Who is Quentin Tarantino?"

Pulp Fiction might have gotten all the awards, but Reservoir Dogs remains the one every Tarantino fan holds onto like a Bible. A heist movie without a heist, an indie movie that outshone every mainstream film, and a trailblazer in creating a new genre of films.