Reservoir Dogs/Headscratchers

Why do Eddie, White and Pink drive up to Orange's house? Isn't anonymity a big part of this deal? I understand Eddie needing to know names/identities, etc, being the son of the boss, but aren't the 6 robbers supposed to be protected from each other? And I know that it's Orange's house, or at least a police-appointed hideout (which makes no difference from the point-of-view of Joe and Eddie) because he's painting a room, has comic posters up (he mentions Fantastic 4 at one point) and he has a change jar with his wedding ring.
- Everyone except Vic is supposed to be kind of transient or an out-of-towner. Orange having a random shitty bachelor pad for the duration of his stay doesn't really say that much about him. Even if it was temporary, it's not unreasonable to toss up a couple posters to make your stay a little more pleasant.
Why didn't any of the criminals have the good sense to at least apply some direct pressure to Mr. Orange's gunshot wound? You'd think that if Mr. White really cared about him that much he'd improvise a bandage of some sort so Mr. Orange wouldn't bleed to death and all that nasty business.
- He had other things on his mind.
- White thought Orange was dead anyway. All he was doing was comforting the guy.
- At first they couldn't because of the getaway occupying them, and after that they took him for a goner.
Why did the music stop when Mr. Orange shot Mr. Blonde? Wouldn't the radio still be on.
- It was all in Mr. Blonde's head. That radio didn't work.
- Then why couldn't we hear it when Blonde went out to fetch some gasoline.
  - Because if Blondie can't hear it, and we're seeing this part of the movie from his POV, then presumably the radio (in his head) is going to be too far away from him for us to hear it.
    - Actually, if you listen closely, it is still playing after Mr. Orange shoots Blonde, just very faintly.
- In my version, it stopped before the shots. It stopped when the song ended, right when the cop shouted "STOP! STOP!" ...which is actually kinda funny.
I'm surprised nobody else brought this one up: Why did three people die in the final standoff? Two of the guns were trained on one person.
- In the original cut, Joe's son also got shot, but then after they changed it, they forgot to alter the last couple scenes. It wouldnt really have worked if they had though, because Joe's son would have just finished off White and probably Orange.
- There were four people. Mr. Pink fired first but wasn't apart of the Mexican Standoff
  - Incorrect, Mr. Pink doesn't shoot anyone. Joe fires first, at Mr. Orange. Mr. White shoots Joe, Nice Guy Eddy shoots Mr. White, and Mr. White shoots Nice Guy Eddy on the way down (remember, this movie has already averted Instant Death Bullet by having Mr. Orange survive an identical wound long enough to be brought to the warehouse and subsequently shoot Mr. Blonde from much further away. Mr. White then drags himself to Mr. Orange-clearly still alive enough to get off the revenge shot. Word of God here.
- Before the first shot, Joe is aiming at Orange, Eddie is aiming at White, and White is aiming at Joe. This gif breaks it down nicely.
In the conversation about tipping at the beginning of the movie, Mr. Pink responds to the argument that waitresses are taxed with the assumption that tips are part of their pay ("...but what I won't do is play ball"). The trouble is, the way the scene is edited, no one ever makes the point he's responding to. It has always bugged me not so much that this continuity error is there -- there are lots of continuity errors in Reservoir Dogs -- but that no one else seems to notice it (it isn't on the otherwise rather thorough IMDB goofs page as of October 2009, for example).
- It's just a continuation of his rant against tipping. He probably already knows that the government taxes their pay, and he's sympathetic, but still doesn't believe in it. No-one makes the point about the tax, but he's already started justifying not tipping, so he's going to continue talking about it, even if it's tangentially related to what people said.
- Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic. This troper has been in several discussions, debates, and arguments where both himself and the other party will bring up a point/counter point that wasn't brought up to counter specifically because we had it prepared in our heads ahead of time, thought it sounded good/convincing, and felt like making the point even though the set up wasn't there.
Why did they let the guy who'd been shot in the head (Mr. Brown) drive the getaway car?
- I'm pretty sure he was shot in the head after they started driving away.
- Tarantino is fond of displaying Major Injury Underreaction when acting: here he is indeed driving with a head wound, and in From Dusk till Dawn he calmly patches his hand with duct tape even with a see-through bullet wound right in his palm.
On the Foreshadowing page, it says the opening scene foreshadows the identity of the rat. Where and how? The best I can think of is Orange being easily swayed by Pink's 'Waitress Tipping' speech, but that's more foreshadowing Orange's easily swayed nature than anything about his identity as a rat.
- It's Foreshadowing that Orange is the rat because when Joe comes back from paying he asks who didn't tip. Orange is the one who tells Joe it was Mr. Pink.
- Ah. I always assumed it was Brown who said that. Fair enough.
- Believe it or not, I think the entire speech is a scum-hunt cooked up by the Cabots. If Joe wasn't 100% sure on somebody before the day he'd need a way to make that person trip up - they'd had a rat blow a gig before - so Joe gives Pink a viewpoint, with evidence, to poke reactions. Eddie kick-starts the rant, Blue and Blonde are sceptical while White is out-and-out against the viewpoint. Orange says precisely nothing until Pink's finished, and then immediately retracts it when Joe intervenes. It was too late to cancel the job (the breakfast is on the day of the hest), but the Cabots could've pulled Orange out or eliminated him after the job goes off successfuly. It doesn't, and things all turn to shit from there.
Why does Joe Cabot go to the hideout, which he knows is compromised?
- I've often wondered that myself. The best I can come up with is that he's willing to sacrifice everything else just to make sure that Orange doesn't get out alive.
- He needed to convince White that Orange was the rat, and knew he had to be there in person to do it. I guess he figured it'd take a minute, tops, to get White to shoot Orange or to do the job himself, then they could bang out with the diamonds and be home free. Unfortunately, White had something else in mind.
- Don't forget his son is in the warehouse with the rat; it's in Joe's interest to make sure Eddie makes it out safely.
- I think the answer to this question lies in the original script. Joe was originally written as borderline mental, you can read it at IMSDB. This explains why he'd do something so stupid.
Mr Pink during the shootout with the cops. Where does the fourth cop (the fat one, who gets shot) come from? There are 3 lean cops running after Pink, he's far away, and in the longer shots you can't see any cop that matches the fourth cop, and you can't see the fat cop over their 3 cops shoulder either. The 3 cops get to the corner after Pink pulls the girl out of the car, the 3 cops that had been running show up, he shoots at them, and then the fourth cop appears from nowhere and gets shot in the stomach.
- Cop #4 is presumably lagging just behind the other three cops (out of shot), but manages to catch up just in time to get shot.
Just before Mr. White picks him up to do a stake-out of the bank, Mr. Orange fetches a wedding band out of loose change tray. Why?
- Presumably, it's his wedding band, and he wants to keep it with him. He doesn't wear it, because then some of his 'associates' might want to meet his wife, which he would understandably not want them doing.
  - Just to clarify, he does wear the ring as mister Orange, it just hard to see in most of the shot, since his hands are kinda covered by his blood for most of the movie. It's probably just a detail to make his character more real, like the story, given how he left the wedding band with his bowl of change and he almost forget to wear it. Also, the rest of the crew would not want to meet his wife, the less they knew about each other, the better.
- Also, I think the whole point of that particular moment was to hint at the existence of his life outside the police force. As a cop, he automatically becomes an ally to others in his profession and an enemy to White, Pink, Blonde, etc...however, he and White demonstrate that they are more than capable of finding some common ground when these professional labels are either disguised or obscured. The ring hints at a whole different aspect of Orange's life which is never brought up, but infers that there is far more to him than just being a "cop", just as there is more to White than merely being a "criminal". (Note also the song playing throughout this scene - "Fool For Love" by Sandy Rogers. Orange may be acting tough as part of his undercover ruse, but this scene touches upon his sentimental/vulnerable side.)
- My guess is that Orange used to be married but decided to wear the ring in this case as part of his "costume". Maybe he's divorced, or maybe his wife died. If he was still married, he wouldn't bury the ring in a bowl of change, and he would have left it behind if he was working undercover. Also, a married man wouldn't be living in such an obvious bachelor apartment.
- I always saw it as just another way for Orange to separate his undercover identity with his real self. It doesn't matter if he's ever been married or not; it's just another physical way to remind himself of who he's being at that moment.
Here's something that wasn't adequately explained on the main page: if it is so torturous to the cop to have his ear lopped off and loud music blaring into the fresh, gaping hole (which of course it would), then why does he seem to have no problem hearing all those gunshots ringing out in that confined, echoey warehouse space a moment later?
- He was probably in as bad a state as he was going to get, and possibly even relieved that Orange woke up long enough to shoot Blonde.
- Me again, I just thought of something: he'd probably already gone deaf in that ear.
  - Besides the outer part of the ear serves to amplify sound, so if it were cut off, sounds would seem quieter, not excruciatingly loud
  - I'm not sure we're supposed to assume it's not bothering him just because he doesn't pipe up and ask a bunch of criminals to kindly stop shooting. Plus, there's no reason to assume he's deaf. Blonde just lopped off the cartilage; the most important structures are inside.
    - Said inside structures having been blasted with music through a large hole left in the side of the head which I'm sure will amplify just fine. But yeah, I'm betting his ear drum nerves are about wasted by now. Too bad about the nerves around the huge hole.
- He probably did have a problem with it; however, considering that he was otherwise moments away from being set on fire and burned to death, his relief at the fact that he wasn't going to die horrifically at the hands of a psychopath after all probably helped him cope a bit better.
If the police knew in advance there was going to be a robbery and where it was going to happen,how did so many of the robbers get away? And why did they get anything from the robbery?
- They weren't expecting Mr. Blonde to turn psycho and start shooting up the place, which changed the game-plan somewhat. The original plan was no doubt to wait outside quietly until the robbers complete the job and leave, swoop in, arrest them and then go home for coffee. Blonde starts shooting, they have to go in early, the robbers start shooting their way out. Chaos ensues.
  - Very stupid cops. As soon as they know where the robbery is (which couldn't possibly be any later than when they case the place itself), they should have arrested the lot when they walked out of the diner and charged them with conspiracy to commit.
  - They probably didn't know precisely where the robbers were going to be meeting up for breakfast. Besides, conspiracy to commit is a lesser crime than actually committing the crime. The cops expected the robbers to surrender, but didn't expect Mr. Blonde's rampage.
- Also keep in mind, the cops weren't after the robbers. Their job was to capture Joe when he meets-up with the robbers. They only interfered to protect more people from being killed by Mr. Blonde.
- Right. The goal was to capture Joe red-handed. There were two teams of cops: the store team and the warehouse team. The cops at the store were supposed to remain hidden unless something went wrong, which it did. The warehouse team was supposed to wait until Joe, Eddie, the diamonds and the other thieves were all together. They didn't move in until they knew all the pieces were in place.
  - Just worth pointing out, there were technically three teams of cops; the cops who were watching the store, the cops who were watching the warehouse, and the cops who were not part of the operation but who responded independently to the store's alarms. It's seeing the latter cops arrive that convinces Mr. Pink that it was all a set-up.
- Still, the plan should have gone out the window the moment they saw a bound and gagged police officer being carried in the warehouse, and if not then, the moment they saw Blondie carrying a gas can into the warehouse, and if not then, the moment they heard the shots Orange fired.
  - The second, fair enough, but the first might make them more hesitant to go in; you barge into a hostage situation all guns blazing without being fully aware of the situation, there's a good chance the hostage ends up dead.
  - There was probably a big communications SNAFU going on while this was happening. Once the situation shifted to a hostage scenario, they probably had to radio in the change of plans and then call in SWAT, which would need to be authorized. SWAT, once deployed, would take their time with going in until they were ready (especially if they're hiding in wait). Assuming that they're listening in to Orange's conversation, they'll know he's still alive and they don't need to go in until Joe shows up. The cops only start to close in once they know Joe is in the building and they another round of gunfire.
During the first scene, how does Joe know that he's $1 short on tip money almost instantaneously? On top of that the bills are crumpled and in a pile.
- He assumes that each guy puts in a dollar and knows how many people there are present. Ergo, there should be X (I forget exactly how many were there) amount of dollar bills in the pile. You could just quickly count them by doing a quick once-over of the pile, and ergo be able to tell if anyone hadn't contributed if the amount of bills in the pile was less than the amount of people present.
- Joe presumably has to deal with people taking a little off the top from him on occasion. He might have gotten very good at counting money at a glance.
Why does White care so much about Orange? They don't seem to have interacted all that much except on a professional basis, and Orange comes across as a slightly awkward outsider in all the group scenes. What is it that makes these two buddies?
- They bonded while White was teaching Orange the essentials of jewelry store robbery. Ever seen Donnie Brasco?
- And perhaps it doesn't really matter whether it's Orange or someone else. White might just be one of those Anti Villains who draws a difficult but precise line between collateral damage/work ("just cops") and "real" moral decisions. A bit like Jules in Pulp Fiction, who deeply respects colleagues who seemed to be just whiny wimps like Vincent Vega and Jimmy. For all we know, if it was Blue or Pink, he'd be protective of them too.
- I think Orange's obvious youth in comparison to everyone else (he looks like he's in his late twenties/early thirties) was a big factor - White essentially acted mentor to him. I think he felt protective primarily because Orange was so young, and awkward.
- As one of the believers in the Ho Yay factor, I have to point out the original choice for playing Orange was James Woods, who's only like 4 or 5 years Harvey Keitel junior. Tarantino was persistent in his attempts to get Woods to play the part, and he didn't think Tim Roth would be a good choice, so the age diference was definitely not a factor when the script was written.
  - There are two other possible reasons. Orange was obviously dying so White probably felt protective of him, and like he should at least try and make his death a little less painful. Or you could take on board the Ho Yay factor and think that White is a little in love with Orange. Or a combination of all of the above.
- They clearly bond in the scene (which presumably isn't the only one) where White's taking Orange through the game plan for the robbery, but remember also that White blames himself -- not unreasonably -- for Orange getting shot in the first place. It's pretty clear that White is very strong on 'honor among thieves' and such, is determined to even out this by any means necessary. He also seems to take the younger members of the team under his wing somewhat (and even though James Woods was initially the original choice for Orange, we have to work with what we've got here); there's also the scene where Pink reveals he managed to get away with the loot and White pats his shoulder in a fatherly sort of 'atta boy' way.
  - He even says "Good boy."
- Fire-Forged Friends.
Did Mr. Orange/Freddy make up that story of Vic will betray the group, or did he sincerely believe it? Granted, he's not exactly in a tip-top condition to think clearly, but there's little to no reason to believe that the latter's going to run away with the goods. On the other hand, why demonise Vic when simply telling the truth — apart from the fact that he's siding with the cop — would suffice? ("He's about to kill the cop and he's going to kill me too!") Surely he knew that Mr. White, Mr. Pink, and any other operative would back him up.
- At this point, he's a little desperate -- not only is he bleeding to death, but he's shot one of the robbers, which -- considering they're no doubt on the hunt for a rat (and he's probably heard them talking about it) makes him Suspect #1, since none of the other robbers would have given much of a fuck if Blonde killed the cop (or, probably, him -- considering that most of them except White probably think he's a liability who's better off dead in his condition and are ruthless enough to do it as well). He's probably just trying to think of an explanation that's better than "I'm an undercover cop" and / or "I took exception to Blonde torturing a guy for no reason," and figures that since Blonde's clearly not stable it's not entirely unconvincing that he might try to rip the other guys off.
- So he did make it up?
- Yup. Although I don't doubt he probably thought Blonde was capable of it. The 'betrayal' story he cooked up was a handy way of deflection attention from himself as a potential rat. But Freddy's smart enough to lie his way out of a bad situation, and that's what he tried to do.
- It's also worth noting that he doesn't know that Mr. Blonde is a close personal friend and colleague of Joe and Nice Guy Eddie and has all that history with them, including having sacrificed his freedom for them; given all the anonymity for everyone involved, all he really knows is that Blonde, like everyone, is just a hired gun for the job; maybe one with ties to Joe, but not much more than that. Therefore, he has no reason to expect that they won't believe that Blonde would try to doublecross them. It's just unfortunate that Mr. Blonde does have all that history that makes Nice Guy Eddie question and reject the lie out of hand.
- Plus, the movie plays out in 'real time'. There are no cuts to other scenes while Blonde is torturing the cop and we never hear him outline his cunning plan in the way Orange says he did. Orange just came up with that story to explain why he shot Blonde.
I understand that Vic and Eddie are buddies, but his angry defense of Vic doesn't make that much sense. Sure he may have done time out of loyalty (or simply because it's fun), but ratting out a powerful crime boss isn't exactly wise either. He might, you know, just chose to be silent because it's actually a good option.
- Vic's a made guy. It goes a little above and beyond simple loyalty.
- Plus, given how close and friendly Vic, Joe and Eddie are in the scene where Joe offers Vic the place on the heist, it's clear that they're all at the very least good friends.
- Notice both Eddie's tone of voice when explaining to Orange who Mr. Blonde was to him, and Blonde's tone when thanking Joe for not forgetting him while he was doing time. Eddie described Blonde as his "very good friend" and looked near tears that he was dead. Blonde said in a frank tone to Joe that "it meant a lot" to him that Joe continually sent him things while he was in prison. Clearly these are close people so Eddie's angry defense of Vic was not just professional, it was a friend angry his friend had been killed and someone is now saying that friend would have betrayed him.
- Maybe it was a matter of acting on Michael Madsen's part, but due to the delivery of the line it always struck me as though Blonde was lying or trying to kiss ass when he said that; it didn't sound genuine. Real psychopaths are masters of deception and manipulation (though we are talking about a "movie" psychopath not a real one), so it's possible all that loyalty was just an act on his part, though that's hard to reconcile with Eddie's description of him willingly doing time when he could have just as easily cut a deal and walked. Either way, it seems as though Blonde doesn't have much concern for the safety of his colleagues or the success of the job itself, even when he has a lot riding on the outcome. He does what he does because he wants to have fun, and doesn't consider the future. I've also always wondered why Blonde trails the gasoline all the way to the door, as if he's trying to burn down the whole warehouse and not just the cop. Was he afraid of getting burned himself if he just pooled it all around the chair?
  - Mr. Blonde's definitely a psychopath, and a less-than-stable one at that, but even psychopaths can have senses of self-preservation; Joe is clearly a bigshot in the criminal underworld, meaning it's not going to be very healthy to get on his bad side and is going to be a good idea to stay on his good side. Besides which, Blonde also clearly hates cops, and might just value telling a cop to fuck off more than cutting a good deal for himself. As for the gasoline trail, as well as avoiding getting burned I suspect Blonde made the trail as long as he did to further prolong the cop's fear, torment and (eventual) death; the longer he makes the trail, the longer the flame has to go, which means the longer the cop has to wait and watch as it gets closer to him before he goes up like a candle.
In the scene where White, Orange, Pink, and Eddie are driving to warehouse to meet Joe and plan the heist, Eddie refers to Pink as...Pink. This is directly followed by the scene where everyone gets their aliases. Now, granted, non-linear style could suggest this happens after, but given the costumes and the way it's set up it seems to be before hand.
- Two explanations come to my mind. 1) Eddie already knows who's going to be assigned which name and just happens to use Pink's codename. 2) "Pink" is actually Pink's name. He might have been so upset about having it as a codename because he already has to put up with being called "Pink" and all subsequent jokes -- why does his nickname have to be the same thing?
- I got the impression that Joe had already told everyone their codenames individually, but the planning scene was the first time he shared those names with everyone else. For one reason or another, Pink didn't think Joe was being serious and was surprised that he was really going to be "Mister Pink."
- Judging by Pink's quick delivery of the line "why Mister Pink?", I think he already knew, he was just waiting to bring it up, he wanted to do it in front of everyone as some macho bull. Seems very in character.
- I also got the feeling that it wasn't the first time Pink had complained about his pseudonym, judging by the fed-up "I've had enough of this shit" way Joe delivers the "because you're a fucking faggot, alright?!"; as if Pink's known about it, has been whining about it ever since finding out about it, and Joe's finally had it up to here with him having explained why once too often.
Why does Orange's mentor make such a big deal about teaching him the 'Commode Story'. It seems to be the main plank of Orange's cover and he's expected to get every detail right, but it's really just a throwaway anecdote that doesn't deserve the amount of importance and attention that's focussed on it. I get that it's meant to provoke a 'yeah, you were cool under pressure' response but would armed robbers really be that impressed by a story about a small-time pot dealer being in a public toilet while a couple of Sheriff's deputies, who weren't even interested in him, stood and chatted nearby? Surely it would just smell like BS to them, especially if he tells it exactly the same way each time, like he's been coached to do.
- Because Orange needs SOME kind of criminal background. He learns it over and over again so that the story comes out naturally. Being a cop, he wouldn't have any truthful shady story to tell. He likely didn't tell the story unprovoked - it was his "job interview", of sorts.
- As well as the above, I got the feeling it probably wasn't supposed to be the key plank of Orange's undercover identity's criminal past so much as it was added spice; in any walk of life, you're going to accumulate a series of anecdotes you're going to tell people, and this story is the kind of thing that would come up between a bunch of criminals shooting the shit in a bar when they're getting to know each other; it's funny, it involves him brazenly getting the better of a bunch of dumb cops by breaking the law right under their noses, and so forth. Thing is, even though it seems like a fairly trivial story, Orange still needs to be familiar with it; the more familiar he is, the more natural it's going to sound when he tells it, as if it is the kind of thing he's brought up at every opportunity he gets to tell a funny story about something that happened to him way back when and not something he's just been coached in that afternoon.
  - I though the main purpose of that scene was to show how different the criminals are to how the cops think criminals are. Contrast the cop going out about the ridiculous amount of details Orange is supposed to know for his story with how Eddie talks about 'Lady E' being fazey on the details and flat out arguing with the other criminals about it.
  - There's a difference, though, in being hazy on details because it's been a while since they happened and your memory is unreliable and being hazy on details because you only learnt the story an hour ago and have forgotten several of the key details since then because you didn't adequately commit it to memory. One is just being a bit forgetful, the other looks suspiciously like you're just making something up or reciting something someone else told you -- which is not what you want to seem like if you're trying to convince someone this happened to you. The other cop compares it to a joke; you add stuff, you remove stuff, you maybe even forget a few details, but if you've told this story over and over it seems natural in a way that it doesn't if it's something you're reciting second-hand for the first time. Orange doesn't need to recite every single detail flawlessly as if it's a speech; he does, however, need to be familiar enough with the story to recite it convincingly.