WE do not know how much of it will survive the scissors, but Reservoir Dogs (Pearl, 9.30pm), even in truncated form, is still a violent, dark, psychopathic movie. It has already been banned on laser disc and video in the United Kingdom, where Parliamentarians presumably want the population to watch re-runs of Bambi, but without the death scene.
Violence has never been quite so taboo in Hong Kong cinema, as anyone who has watched anything by John Woo will know. The difference with Reservoir Dogs is that it is all made to look real. The people in it do not do martial arts.
Part of the exhilaration of Reservoir Dogs is that it is a dizzying entry in the 'f*** you!' school of film-making. At the end of the 80s, when we all thought Bob Geldof could save the world, it would have been derided out of hand. In the '90s, when we have realised the world is beyond help, Reservoir Dogs stands up to greater analysis. It is, one critic said, Glengarry Glen Ross at gunpoint. And two fingers to anyone who disagrees.
The film starts with a jewellery heist gone wrong, but we never get to see the heist. What we do get to see in the opening scenes are bits and pieces of the post-heist chase, with wounded Mr Orange (Tim Roth) writhing and flailing in the back seat of a getaway car driven by Mr White (Harvey Keitel). For reasons of security, the gang members are not told each other's real names. They are instead assigned colours. Michael Madsen is Mr Blonde and Steve Buscemi is Mr Pink.
After the getaway the gang members return to their base, a vast warehouse somewhere in Los Angeles. They are convinced there is a traitor in their midst. Orange is, unbeknownst to them, an undercover cop. Things get more complicated when Mr Blonde arrives at the warehouse with a nice-guy cop (Kirk Baltz) he has taken hostage.
The climax is blood-soaked. The torture scene with Madsen and Baltz is brilliantly handled; in fact it is outrageous, scored with the 70s pop hit by Gerry Rafferty, Stuck in the Middle With You.
