FILM

Reservior Dogs

Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino

at the Brattle

March 28 at 4 and 8 p.m.

Quentin Tarantino's first film, "Reservoir Dogs," files in the face of every Hollywood cops-and-robbers flick you've ever seen. It has the emotional level and acting quality of "Glengarry Glen Ross" and the script and camera work of a newcomer who isn't afraid to challenge the status quo. It screams out, "CULT CLASSIC!"

Not that I'm a fan of cult clasics. I often find them strange and boring. But "Reservior Dogs," despite one strange scene and one boring scene, is undeniably a fine film.

Here's the plot: six men in balck suits and cheap sunglasses are hired by a big guy to pull of a diamond robbery. The cops show up at the heist too soon and a couple of the theives ge kille. Back at headquarters, the thieves' big question is, who ratted?

I can see this storyline carrying your average "entertainment venture" with quick scenes, bright colors, beautiful people, an inspirational soundtrack, and a cartoonish treatment of violence. Instead, Tarantino locates about three fourths of his film in a huge, dismal, echo-y warehose. There, ugly guys scream at each other for so long and with such intensity that we feel like we're at a play. The lack of background noise (no violins or "Jaws" sounds to screw with our feelings) is broken up only by a few funky songs from a "Super Sounds of the Seventies" radio show. And the violence, oh the violence--the horror, the horror.

In the film's most famous sequence, Tarantino gives an original portrayal of violence. The scene centers around the sadistic, twisted Mr. Blonde (all the thieves go by aliases) played by Michael Madsen. During the course of the heist, Mr. Blonde has taken a police officer captive. Back at the warehouse, some of the other guys figure this prisoner can tell them who in the band "ratted" to the police , but Blonde has his own plans. Dancing and singing to "Stuck in the Middle With You," he announces, "I don't give a fuck about what you know or don't know. I'm gonna torture you anyway." Then, as he pulls out a knife and proceeds to slice the cop's ear off, the camera suddenly shifts away from the action to focus on an empty doorway. For some reason, Tarantino hits the right button with this decision: the sounds of slicing and screaming with no visual accompaniment make the scene even more excruciating than it would have been had Tarantino chosen to show the act of mutilation directly.

Clearly, this young director enjoys experimenting with his camera. He zooms, slowly, in and out of scenes. He opens a dialogue by focusing on a toilet and then peering down a hall to show one character having a conversation with another who is outside of the camera's range. Despite its originality, the camera work can sometimes be bewildering. For instance, in the opening location, a diner, we see a lot of the backs of guys' heads as they sit around a table bantering with one another.

Such audacious camera work would be lost without a solid script: luckily, the guy can write, too. What do diamond crooks talk about when they eat together in a diner? Tarantino imagines them interpeting Madonna songs as though they were literary critics: "you said 'True Blue' was about a nice girl who finds a sensitive fella. But 'Like a Virgin' was metaphor for big dicks," proclaims one enlightened criminal. From here they move to philosophising on the wrongs of society.

Mr. Pink, who won't tip, snarls back at the guys when they point out that waiterssing is a hard job. He snaps, "So's workin' at McDonald's, but you don't feel the need to tip them. They're servin' ya food, so you should tip'em. But no, society says tip these guys over here, but not those guys over there. That's bullshit."

The lack of eloquence is realistic; Tarantino never forgets that his characters are really just a bunch of ignorant low-lifes. When Mr. Blonde asks the newly ear-less cop, "Was it as good for you as it was for me ?", we get the feeling that he really means: "I derived erotic pleasure from mutilating you."

The acting also rings true. Michael Madsen, with those dreamboat blue eyes and that Elvis-like carraige that we fell in love with in "Thelma and Louise," drives us crazy as the homicidally insane Mr. Blonde.

And Harvey Keitel sizzles as the judicous Mr. White. His words of wisdom for the rookie criminal Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) on dealing with a store manager during a robbery are; "If you wanna know something that he won't tell you, cut off one of his fingers. The little one. Then you tell 'im his thumb's next. After that he'll tell ya if he wears ladies' underwear. I'm hungry. Let's get a taco." But don't let these words deceive you; Keitel portrays the struggle between Mr. White's hardened exterior and soft-hearted conscience brilliantly.

Razor-sharp, gritty, and warped: that's "Reservior Dogs." Tarantino's characters are awful, slimy,, ignorant guys who throw around words like "nigger," and "bitch" at the drop of a hat, and who function according to skewed, self-dictated systems of morality. We don't liek them. Any of them. But they are real, and complex, and Tarantino manages to keep us hooked.