It’s an action movie which takes place before and after the big action set-piece(which we never see in the film), where the focus instead relies on clever, funny dialogue and an interesting story.
Much of the plot takes place on a single location in a warehouse, often giving the film the feeling of a stage-play more than a cinematic film, right down to the blocking of actors in a scene and the sparse set decoration.
The theatrical influence often feels like A Streetcar Named Desire(Elia Kazan, 1951) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(Richard Brooks, 1958), two films which were based on famous plays which maintained the style of a stage-play. Indeed, in recent times, Reservoir Dogs has been adapted for the stage. It feels like a homage not just to heist movies, but also to stagy screen melodramas of the 1950’s.
With it’s homages, pop-culture references and multi-layered non-linear story, Reservoir Dogs is a kaleidoscopic, brilliant piece of film-making. Quentin Tarantino, the video store clerk and film geek used his encyclopaedic knowledge of all things pop-culture and cinema to create a debut film which set a new standard in post-modernism and has been imitated ever since.