Reservoir Dogs

Tarantino's powerful homage/reworking of the heist-gone-wrong thriller - stealing ideas from Kubrick's The Killing and Scorsese's Mean Streets, among others - is probably the final word (or frame) on the subject. A bunch of colour-coded crooks (Mr White, Mr Pink, etc), previously unknown to each other, chosen and named by ageing capo Joe Cabot (Tierney) and his son Nice Guy Eddie (Penn), execute a jewellery robbery. The job done, the getaway fucked up, they reassemble at a warehouse to get what's coming to them. Tarantino engineers their demise from the interaction of their character flaws - there is certainly no honour among these talkative thieves - with the inexorable logic of a chess grandmaster. Despite the clockwork theatrical dynamics - most of the action is restricted to the warehouse - the film packs a massive punch. It's violent, intelligent, well written (by Tarantino) and acted (Buscemi, Roth and Penn take the prizes). A tour de force.