Tools of Characterization
Characterization in Reservoir Dogs
Thoughts and Opinions
One thing we take from Reservoir Dogs is that there are bad guys, and then there are bad guys; it's all a matter of principles. When White and Pink are talking in the abandoned funeral home, they discuss the difference between the two.
MR. PINK: I tagged a couple of cops. Did you kill anybody?
MR. WHITE: A few cops.
MR. PINK: No real people?
MR. WHITE: Just cops.
That's one way to think about things. Another would be that cops are actual, living human beings. However, if you're living the life of a criminal, maybe it's easy to see the people who are supposed to be keeping the peace as your nemesis. They go on to elaborate a little bit:
MR. PINK: I don't wanna kill anybody. But if I gotta get out that door, and you're standing in my way, one way of the other, you're gettin outta my way.
MR. WHITE: That's the way I look at it. The choice between doing 10 years and taking out some stupid motherf***er ain't no choice at all…
We guess it takes a certain kind of person to pull off armed robbery. These guys are professionals and when they're on the job, they mean business. However, just because they're willing to kill anyone who stands in their way doesn't mean they don't still have principles.
MR. WHITE: I ain't no madman, either. What the f*** was Joe thinking? I can't work with a guy like that. We're awful goddamn lucky he didn't tag us when he shot the place up. I came this close to taking his ass out myself.
MR. PINK: I mean, everybody panics. Everybody. Things get tense. It's human nature, you panic. I don't care what your name is. You can't help it. F***, man, you panic on the inside, in your head, you know? You give yourself a couple of seconds. You get ahold of the situation. You deal with it. What you don't do is start shooting up the place and start killing people.
It's nice to know there's a line… even if that line is still pretty far out there. These kinds of opinions are important, though. They help us differentiate the sane criminals like White and Pink, from the nut jobs like Blonde.
Speech and Dialogue
Reservoir Dogs is a very dialogue-driven movie. Let's go back to that initial diner scene and see if we can find any hints in the dialogue about things to come.
There's a lot of talk about music and tipping, but one of the conversations that often flies under the radar is the pseudo-altercation between White and Joe. Joe has this old address book and is murmuring names from it, trying to remember who's who. White's sitting next to Joe and is sick of listening to him think out loud. White grabs the book from him and they proceed to argue over it, Joe asking for it back and White insisting that it's his now.
This doesn't seem like much; it's probably just increasing the authenticity of the scene. However, when we watch the whole movie, we see that it was perhaps foreshadowing the film's final conflict where Mr. White tries to keep Orange from killing Joe.
Also, let's not forget when Orange rats out Pink to Joe for not tipping. It's probably not a coincidence that the first person to speak up about who didn't tip is also the person who's already betrayed the whole group.
The dialogue in the diner is all super macho talk, filled with expletives and degrading comments about women and black people. This all got plenty of criticism, which Tarantino thought was unfair: "That is also how these guys talk and that was an important part to me to bring in. I wanted to hook you into these guys […] but I wanted to make it real hard. […] I wanted to show you them warts and all."
Tarantino wrote this as realistic dialogue, then, to tell us that this is a bunch of bad guys… and when bad guys get together, this is how they talk. It also serves the purpose of showing us that these guys aren't criminals 100% of the time. They think about mundane stuff like the rest of us: TV shows, music, how much to tip waitresses. The rest of us, though, don't tend to hold up jewelry stores and shoot people.
Physical Appearances
The first time we see our characters they're all sitting together in a diner, and what stands out is the way they're dressed. Each of these guys is wearing a suit except the bosses. This does a couple things.
First, it creates both a sense of cohesion and a sense of professionalism. We assume that a bunch of middle aged guys dressed up like they're secret agents or are about to enter an important job interview are probably not just enjoying brunch before they all head over to Billy's house to watch the big game. These guys may be all joking around with each other, but a bunch of guys sitting at a diner all dressed in identical black suits? This practically screams "something is about to go down."
There's more to physical appearance that just clothes, though. Some of the characters have a natural look to them that makes viewers assume certain things (and probably played a part in determining who got what role). Mr. Blonde just looks like a cool guy. Maybe it's the hair, maybe it's the jawline. It would be weird thinking of him in the role of the high energy, excitable Mr. Pink, with his distinct eyes and jittery demeanor. Then you've got Eddie who looks like the jokester he is—he has a warm, affable look, and if Joe isn't the grumpiest lookin' dude, then we don't know what grumpy looks like.
Maybe these are all just simple casting decisions. However, it's interesting to note the stereotypes we have in our head; we tend to associate certain physical appearances with certain personalities. Like, do blondes/Mr. Blondes really have more fun?