Reservoir Dogs

Nope, I didn't get the memo... After a jewellery heist goes wrong and the escaping funeral-attired hoodlums kill a couple of cops and one gets gut-shot in a car-jacking, they return to their hideout where they turn on each other with expletive-ridden venom. What now ensues is a recreation of the planning and execution of their raid, their introductions to each other and that all lays the seeds for this over-rated drama of brutal mistrust and duplicity. Tim Roth probably stands out as "Mr. Orange" but the rest of the fairly well established cast offer us little by way of sophistication or subtlety as they try to decide which - if any of them - informed the police. It's violent but so what - it's not Scorsese, nor does the story really hold up after it becomes glaringly obvious what is actually going to happen at the end. Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut has shock value, certainly, but I'm afraid I found the whole thing really quite dull. Sorry - but there's more to good writing and characterisation that loads of effing, jeffing, charm-free thuggery and bullets. Not for me!