Drawing inspiration from a number of sources, including Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing and Hong Kong action movies, Tarantino’s violent and skilfully wrought debut turns the gangster thriller inside out. This tale about a heist which goes disastrously wrong focuses more on the aftermath of the failed robbery than on its planning and execution. Reconstructing in retrospect, and from a variety of points of view, the events surrounding the bloody debacle, the script employs an almost self-referential, novelistic structure that was to become a hallmark of Tarantino’s approach. The overlapping, often conflicting stories told by the thieves – now holed up in an abandoned warehouse – offer only fragments of the big picture, like images reflected and refracted in a broken mirror.

U.S.A,. 1992.
With: Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, Steve Buscemi.
Colour.
Anamorphic.
Dolby stereo SR.
100 mins.