Reservoir Dogs: Sundance Institute 1991 June Film Lab

This short is like an audition tape of Quentin Tarantino for feature-length 'Reservoir Dogs' movie, but not to show his acting talent, but rather to showcase his writing chops. And, oh boy, what beautiful writing that is - edgy, witty and intelligent. This little gem was made with the help of the Sundance Film Institute to secure more funding for the feature-length movie.

Steve Buscemi is Mr. Pink (the role he reprised in the real movie), Tarantino is Mr. White (later portrayed by Harvey Keitel), and Joe Cabot is played by David Jensen (to whom this was the only collaboration with Tarantino). The writing is masterful, and proof to that besides fast dialogue is that the story is perfectly clear and characters are nicely drawn out. Steve Buscemi is brilliant, of course. Quentin Tarantino's own acting is atrocious but at the same time sincere and entertaining. But this is not important - he never wanted to show off his acting skills in this anyway. The direction is low key, but still interesting enough.

Don't expect too much from this. It is what it is - just a demo reel, a rehearsal of a couple of the scenes, yet it is a magnificently interesting piece of filmmaking that plays a much important part in the shaping of American independent cinema than it gets the credit for (this could be an overstatement by myself but nonetheless, check this short film out if you are a fan of Tarantino, 'Reservoir Dogs' or simply like indie movies).

This short proof-of-concept film was pretty much the only thing credited to Quentin Tarantino as a director that I haven't seen... actually, outside some TV episodes. He did one episode of ER and one for CSI, which is kind of crazy to think about, because very few people seem to talk about those. If I feel really starved for more Tarantino in the seemingly eternal wait for his 10th (and supposedly final) film, I guess I can always check them out.

There's not a great deal to say about this short. It's very short and intentionally rough, really just showcasing two scenes that ended up in the feature film but with less production value, shakier acting, and little flair directorially. The dialogue is still what shines, though, and I think the strength of that is what showed potential for Reservoir Dogs to become a feature. That and Steve Buscemi, who's the only one of three actors in this to reprise the role in the proper Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino was Mr. Brown in the feature, and plays Harvey Keitel's Mr. White here. Of course, he is not quite Keitel.

It's hard to rate, even as a short film, because it isn't intended to have a beginning or an end. It's not worth checking out for most people, given the feature exists and is Reservoir Dogs made to its full potential. But for big fans of the film or Tarantino in general, this rough proof of concept is interesting, and has value for anyone who finds the idea of it at least mildly intriguing.