I cannot emphasize this enough: Making a movie isn’t easy. Especially when it’s your first feature. Many first-time filmmakers get more wrong than right. However, just getting a motion picture shot and distributed is a major victory in and of itself. With that in mind, the idea that Quentin Tarantino’s debut feature was lauded by critics and viewers alike is a true testament to his uncompromising talent.
Tarantino effectively made something out of nothing with Reservoir Dogs. He completed the flick for an estimated budget of just over $1 million. And he did that at a time when films were still exclusively shot on celluloid (save for cheapie shot-on-video projects, of course). It’s inspiring that the former video store clerk found a way to channel his passion for cinema into a thrilling, artistically rendered effort that we’re still talking about more than 30 years later.
With a first outing like that, it’s no wonder the writer/director has won multiple Oscars in the years since.
Tarantino’s scrappy debut picture unfolds like this:
Six criminals with pseudonyms, each a stranger to the others, are hired to carry out a robbery. The heist is ambushed by police, and the gang is forced to shoot their way out. At their warehouse rendezvous, the survivors, realizing that they were set up, try to find the traitor in their midst.
Tarantino takes the primary writing credit and the sole directorial credit for Reservoir Dogs. However, his Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary takes a “background radio dialogue written by” credit here. That’s not a credit you see handed out with much regularity, is it?
Avary and Tarantino had a longstanding feud after the attribution of writing credits for Pulp Fiction created tension between the talented creatives. They didn’t speak for some time following the film’s release. Fortunately, the duo eventually reconnected, and now they host the Video Archives Podcast together.
Where is Reservoir Dogs available to stream?
If you’re keen to experience Tarantino’s directorial debut, you can do so entirely free of charge right now. That’s right, Reservoir Dogs is currently streaming via The Internet Archive.
That’s all we’ve got for you, for the time being. Keep an eye out for more updates on which films from your favorite creators are available to stream. If you fancy the idea of keeping up with me on social media, you can find me on Threads as @FunWithHorror.
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