In it are all the classic Tarantino touches, like non-linear chronologies, unexpected extreme violence, super-long shots and interesting blends of contemporary music and narrative. If you don’t follow flash-backs easily or handle mutilation well, then this isn’t the movie for you; but then neither are the majority of those created by Tarantino. What does the blu-ray format contribute to the Reservoir Dogs experience? It ranges from relatively little to absolutely nothing depending what aspect precisely you’re talking about. The sharpness of the image and colour reproduction is great, possibly better than I recall seeing on celluloid. Tarantino tends to like the odd grainy scene, but we’re not talking Tony Scott extremes, and within the scope of this production it adds the natural lighting that pervades this production. Sound is also very impressive considering the budget and era, which has been remixed here for both DTS-HD 6.1 Matrixed Surround and Dolby Digital Surround EX soundtracks. I’d love to say that this film really needed those, but actually it doesn’t. Extras The full collection of extra material includes;
Commentary with Quentin Tarantino, producer Lawrence Bender and selected cast and crew Pulp Factoid Viewer The Critics’ Commentaries (Amy Taubin, Peter Travers and Emanuel Levy) Playing It Fast and Loose – Documentary Profiling the Reservoir Dogs Tipping Guide Deleted Scenes (6) The Class of ’92: Sundance Interviews Tarantino’s Sundance Institute Film-makers Lab An Introduction to Film Noir: Writers and Film-makers feature Dedications – Tarantino on his influences Securing the Shot: Location Scouting with Billy Fox feature Original Interviews with Tarantino and cast Reservoir Dolls K-Billy Super Sounds of the 70’s Reservoir Dogs Style Guide
At first I thought there had been some muck-up, because Play among other sites claim that this is a two-disc version, but it isn’t. What they’d done is use a single 50GB disc rather than two 25GB ones. Smart move, I’d say. I can’t actually comment on the nicety or otherwise of the ‘petrol can’ packaging, because my review version was devoid of that aspect. But I’ve been told they can get dented in the post. As much as is here, I can’t resist feeling that a gouging 20 th anniversary Blu-ray edition is coming, or am I just as cynical as some of the characters in this movie? The bottom-line is that this is a great movie, and it’s seen in good quality on Blu-ray, much better than some of the washed out DVD transfers. If you’ve never seen it, then this is the perfect venue. But if you have the previous special DVD release then you’re not going to get as much out of this as you might want for the money. But that’s a choice you need to make yourself. Reservoir Dogs is a nice-to-have, but I wouldn’t cut off anyone’s ear to get it.
