The major beats are all here, and in hindsight they are rather formulaic. The reveals are handled masterfully.
Tarantino toys with our emotions so that we are rooting for the wrong guy the for the entire film.
Nothing Really Happens
After I re-watched this recently a mate of mine didn’t understand why I liked it so much and I had a hard time convincing him of its quality.
This is a scriptwriters film; a filmmakers film. The technique and narrative detail is key. Very little actually happens in the film.
There is the meeting of the crew on the day of the robbery. The aftermath of the robbery. The debate about what to do after the botched job – which is the majority of the film.
Attention to Detail
It is the realism of every scene and every detail of every scene that makes this film and story so good. Everything in the breakfast scene at the start of the movie has an important place – even though it just feels like breakfast.
We get to meet all the main characters – get to see what they are like with each other and with the boss, Joe. We also get a sense of the pecking order and who the ‘characters’ are. All in a couple of minutes.
We move through the normal beats of the story quickly as Mr. White and Mr. Orange arrive at the Rendezvous. The beats are delivered with clinical efficiency.
Catalyst Off Screen
The catalyst is one of, if not, the most important scene of a film. Without it you have no focus for the rest of the film. You should be left floundering, wondering what the narrative is about.
Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels
So what was Tarantino thinking by having the characters talk about the catalyst – the robbery? We don’t get to actually see the scene at all.
This holds up because of the brilliant performances of Tim Roth and Harvey Keitel. A key aspect of this film is the he said she said aspect of the robbery. We are pretty sure about who the real cause of the mayhem is after Mr. Blonde struts his stuff to super sounds of the 70s.
Mr. Blonde on Torture
A big part of this film is the emotional manipulation that Tarantino puts us through. He makes us want to root for one character or another. One of the things he does so well is to put the characters – Mr. Orange & Marvin Nash – in a position where they cannot do anything.
Mr. Orange is shot in the gut early on and spends the film bleeding onto the floor. Marvin is tied up. These physical restraints as they are put in danger make us squirm in our seats.
Mr. Blonde is all kinds of crazy. Michael Madsen captures the stoic psycho with aplomb. I feel that this scene sets us up for what we are going to see in Tarantino’s coming films – a lot of graphic violence.
In this film the torture happens off screen. We do get to see the aftermath which is terrible. So, I wonder if it was more an issue with effects rather than a decision not to show us what was happening.
The Worst Mexican Stand Off
The crisis of the film ends with one of the most controversial scenes in movie history. Controversial, not because of what it shows but because of what it doesn’t show.
Photo by Sina Katirachi on Unsplash
So, we have Joe pointing his gun at Mr. Orange; Mr. White pointing his gun at Joe and Nice Guy Eddy pointing his gun at Mr. White. Yet, when the guns go off they all go down pretty much at the same time, with no-one shooting Nice Guy Eddie.
Not Good Enough in a Film where Detail is Key
I found this the most perplexing thing when I first watched it and skipped back and forth many times. I never came to a decision about who killed Nice Guy Eddie. After watching it again for this review I decided that wouldn’t do.
After watching the scene no less than twenty times I was certain that no one shot Eddie. So I started to do some digging. In the script Joe shoots Mr. Orange and Mr. White shoots Joe and then almost immediately shoots Eddie as Eddie shoots him. But this is not what happened on film.
I found a report that what happened was the squibs went off at the wrong time so they all just went down and Quentin said “You know what? It’ll be the biggest controversy of the film. We’re leaving it.”
Fine, he was right, but in a film that was so well crafted to leave this glaring hole just feels so wrong to me.
