Reservoir Dogs to Django Unchained

The movies of Quentin Tarantino.  Recently I watched “Django Unchained” on DVD, following that up with re-watching “Reservoir Dogs” a second time.  QT makes interesting, entertaining films; they’re sometimes controversial, almost always violent, with non-linear plots, and practically no sex.  They are films for guys to watch, and women typically do not like them; though I wouldn’t be surprised if “Pulp Fiction”, “Kill Bill”, or “Jackie Brown” have some female fans.

Reservoir Dogs.  His debut.  The film has a common beginning and ending, but the middle branches out into several parallel story lines based on the individual characters.

            A crew of bank robbers fall apart on each other after the heist goes bad.  Remarkably, the heist itself is completely absent from the movie and is only referred to after the fact.  It went so bad, so quickly, that the characters naturally suspect a police informer in their midst…and they’re right.

            For security reasons, the gang members are given color code names: Mr. Blonde (Michael Marsden), Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi), Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), and Mr. Brown (Harvey Keitel). 

            A uniformed police officer is caught and tortured by Mr. Blonde – he cuts his ear off.   Personally, I found that a bit distasteful, but nowhere near as unpleasant as the shower chainsaw scene in “Scarface”.

The deleted scenes on the DVD show more background of the cops’ purpose in allowing a robbery they know will happen to take place so they can finally catch Mr. Brown redhanded and send him away for life.

            BONUS  BICKERING ABOUT NOTHING.  Do you tip? 

Pulp Fiction.  By far the most popular and probably the most overrated of his films.   It competes with “Reservoir Dogs” for being the more cult favorite; my preference is for this one.  “Basterds” and “Django”, though, have impressed me enough to give “Pulp” competition for favorite status.

            Non-linear plot, various characters. 

            1)         Travolta and Jackson as Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield.   Matching suits?  Good.  Bible quote? ZZZ.  That got tiresome immediately.  This role stuck an adrenaline needle in the heart of Travolta’s acting career.

            2)         Rhames & Thurman as Marcellus and Mia Wallace

            3)         Harvey Keitel as the “Cleaner” + QT in his own role

            4)         Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge (+ his dopey GF), a boxer paid by Marcus to take a dive – predictably, he wins his fight. 

            5)         Eric Stoltz as the drug dealer; Christopher Walken as the veteran

            6)         + the weirdos in the pawnshop basement.

            I can’t even begin on this.  The plot is all over the place, but the great thing is that it never gets confusing – except for the moment before you realize the story has looped in on itself at the diner.  

            The other great thing about this film, and what distinguishes it from all the others, which are either homages or genre type films, is that “Pulp Fiction” is QT’s own original story.  This is why he could make it so wacked out.  Keitel and Roth return again.

            BONUS  BICKERING ABOUT NOTHING.  What do they call a Quarter Pounder in Paris? 

Jackie Brown.  An all-star cast, including Pam Grier herself, plus Bridget Fonda and Robert Deniro.  This is essentially QT’s “homage” to 70s blackploitation films.  There’s actually some sex in here, but not from Grier.

  Because it’s a homage to simple films from the 70s, it has a simple plot.

Kill Bill 1 & 2.  Now we have a martial arts/revenge tribute.  Moreover, QT is doing the environment a favor by recycling actors:  Michael Madsen and Uma Thurman reappear.  Here we have a major female character.

            Thurman is “The Bride”, left for dead at the altar by her erstwhile gangmates and the groom himself.  She tracks down and kills each one separately:  Vernita Green (Vivica Fox), Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah), Budd (Michael Madsen), Ishii (Lucy Liu), and then Bill himself, David Carradine.  The Lucy Liu segment is my favorite: an animated sequence plus an implausibly vast number of attackers.

Grindhouse: Death Proof.  Kurt Russell and Rose McGowan are the stars.  Russell plays a mysterious killer, first driving a primered Chevy Nova, then a primered Dodge Charger.  The story has two parts.  This looks like QT’s shot at doing a horror movie.  Russell is cool as the bad ass villain, even nastier than Snake Plissken.  The fake trailer for “Machete” eventually became the real Danny Trejo film.  Nude Lindsay Lohan?  Awesome, but “Machete” tops both this film and “Planet Terror”, the Robert Rodriguez zombie film tacked on to “Death Proof” as the “Grindhouse” double feature.

Inglorious Basterds.  QT takes a shot at a World War II film.  Although Brad Pitt, leader of an eccentric “Dirty Dozen” type Jewish-American unit going behind German lines collecting “Natzi scalps”, is supposedly the lead character in this movie, Christoph Waltz, as the personable, multilingual, charismatic SS officer Hans Landa, really steals the show.

Django Unchained.  This is the newest one.  Jamie Foxx plays Django, a freed slave who becomes a bounty hunter seeking to find his long lost wife, Broomhilda.  He’s assisted by King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), a former dentist now acting as a bounty hunter.  Mind you, “bounty hunter” at this time (1858) means “kill wanted criminal and collect the reward”, not “capture bail escapee and bring back to trial alive”, as it does these days.

    Don Johnson plays a Colonel Sanders-type plantation owner, Leonardo DiCaprio plays Calvin Candie, the plantation owner who owns Broomhilda, and Samuel L. Jackson is the “house slave”, always with his master’s best interests at heart, who alerts Candie to the pair’s agenda of seeking Broomhilda, rather than Candie’s fighting slaves (mandingos).   QT himself, Tom Wopat, Bruce Dern, and Jonah Hill are in here as minor characters; Franco Nero himself (the original “Django”) has a minor role as an unlucky mandingo owner. 

   This seems to be QT’s “take on slavery”.  The N-word gets heavy abuse, and there is just as much delicious violence as any of QT’s other films, but bear with it.  It’s another fun ride.  This one has the slugfest at the end, where it usually ends up.

Honorable (?) mentions (QT as actor and not director):

1)         From Dusk Till Dawn.  QT and George Clooney take on vampires in a Mexican bar.  Salma Hayek may possibly salvage this horrible movie from oblivion with her undeniable hotness.  Cheech didn’t.

2)         Sukiyaki Western Django.  Here’s the funny part.  “Django Unchained” has nothing to do with the original movie, “Django”, in which Franco Nero played the title role.  QT simply took the name.  But this film, which actually has QT in a minor role, takes “Django” and transplants it to Japan.  Those of you familiar with “A Fistful of Dollars” will recognize the plot: mysterious stranger comes to town and plays two gangs against each other.  However, both “Django” movies include an ingredient Eastwood left out: the coffin.  Watch and enjoy.