Who Do You Think You're Fooling?

Interesting short film. I see the director's point about how Tarantino's story for Reservoir Dogs is similar to City on Fire... but who really cares? Everything these days is a remake or a re-imagining of something that's already been done before. Just watch Swingers; they have a great conversation about the issue in that movie, and they go on to re-enact a scene (fittingly) from Reservoir Dogs.

Other than that, the editing was sort of amateur. It was a cool idea to overlay the audio of one film with the video of the other film, but the timing was sort of bad. There were some parts of the film that went for too long, that could have been trimmed down.

I don't like Reservoir Dogs. Matter of taste. Call me an ignorant film aficionado if you must, but I simply don't see what all the fuss is about with that film. I've later enjoyed several of Quentin's films, though. Anyway, when I heard of this 10+ minute long(or should I say, short) documentary comparing it to another movie, I was intrigued. I must say, it's hard to deny that White has a point. There are frighteningly obvious and clear similarities between the two films(though there is no doubt; even from someone who doesn't care in the least for the film - such as yours truly - Tarantino definitely improves on the original), and I'm not certain that Mr. T acknowledges his source. If he does, there is no grounds for the allegations put forth here... if not, Mike is a man who goes against the herd, one that is not afraid to stand up and tell the rest of us(though a few have made similar claims, few, if any, have gone this far with it) that the emperor has no clothes(or, at the very least, he's embarrassingly under-dressed). I recommend this documentary to anyone who's seen Reservoir Dogs... regardless of whether they love it or not. Keep an open mind. You might be surprised. 6/10

OK so maybe Tarantino took two scenes and a few shots out of City on Fire and put it in his movie. WHO THE HELL CARES??? All of Mike's arguments a so so justified except for one in which he compared Mr. Orange getting shot with Ko Chow (the cop in City on Fire) getting shot in the belly. That was completely taken out of context and it made the movie lose its credibility. One thing i did like about it though was an added song that was put in during the car chase in City on Fire. I have seen both Reservoir Dogs and City on Fire so I am able to make an informed opinion about this. And my opinion is as follows.

Get a life, Mike White!

Of course, filmmakers borrow from each other, but that's not White's gripe. The issue here is that QT was being heralded as the most creative director on the planet at the time, and though he credited several people (including one of the stars of City On Fire) for having served him as inspirations, he failed to give credit to Ringo Lam, the writer/director of the film that he borrowed the most from during the making of Reservoir Dogs.

Is QT talented? Absolutely. It just would have been nice if he had been confident enough in his talent to share credit where credit was due. But... this was very early in his career and he had not yet developed that confidence. He does appear to have it in spades now though, and that is a very good thing.