Critic Reviews
81
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
positive
21(88%)
mixed
3(13%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 24 Critic Reviews
100
You may not like the terms Tarantino sets, but you have to admit he succeeds on them.
100
A brutal movie, brutal in all the right ways -- brutally stark, brutally funny, brutally brutal. [30 Oct 1992]
100
Reservoir Dogs sizzles - it's dynamite on a short fuse, and you watch it with mesmerized fascination, simultaneously attracted and repelled by the explosion you know will come.
100
If Quentin Tarantino's gritty, bone-chilling, powerfully violent new film, Reservoir Dogs, doesn't pin your ears back, nothing ever will...[It's] as caustic as battery acid. It's brutal, it's funny and you won't forget it. Guaranteed.
100
Grabs you by the throat and digs its claws in deep. From the moment that the unwitting viewer tumbles into the realm of Lawrence Tierney's gang of eight, they are hopelessly trapped there until the final credits roll.
100
With the exception of the opening scene -- whose purpose is chiefly comic -- the movie is one, extended climax. Even with flashbacks and other time jumps, it never lets up. You have to go back to Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1952 "The Wages of Fear" to recall suspense this relentless.
100
The hippest crime flick this side of "Goodfellas," Reservoir Dogs has all the hallmarks of a modern classic.
100
Writer-director Quentin Tarantino is one lethal storyteller. Reservoir Dogs, even for those of us with weak stomachs, is a masterful story setup, aided and abetted by all those colorful guys in on the thing.
90
The truth is that for all the controversy there really isn’t that much violence in Reservoir Dogs. The reason people were so affected was because the film shows you the true impact of its violence.
90
Most of the movie is Actors Acting: gifted guys (Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Chris Penn) running nattering riffs on familiar lout themes. [16 Nov 1992]
