The hidden messages in Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'

Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'

'Reservoir Dogs': plot summary

Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'

The film opens in daylight inside of a diner, six men wearing black suits and black ties are siting around a table discussing Madonna’s song “Like a Virgin.” Mr. Brown says that the song is about a promiscuous woman who finally meets a guy with a dick big enough that makes her feel  pain, like the very 1st time, like a virgin. The boss has his a little black book open trying to place the name Toby Wong. Mr. White snatches the book away and Mr. Blonde asks the boss in a playful way if he wants him to shoot Mr. White. The boss’ son, Nice Guy Eddie, asks everybody if they listen to a radio program called K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Weekend. A couple of them mention their favorite songs. Pink likes the song ‘Heartbeat (It’s a love beat)’

Boss’ son likes ‘The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.’ The cheating wife singing this song is the 1 who shot Andy (This is an analogy of how Mr. Orange plays Mr. White). Boss gets up to go to take care of the bill and tells the guys to throw in a tip for the waitress. Everybody throws in except for Mr. Pink who doesn’t feel obligated to do so just because society’s norms says he should. He doesn’t care about how little waitresses earn; they can quit.

Boss returns to collect the tips and makes Mr. Pink throw in a tip, too

Opening titles

Robbers walking in slow motion a la Clockwork Orange (K-Billy Supersounds plays ‘Keep on Truckin’)

Mr. Orange is soaked in blood and laid out in the backseat of a car. Mr. White promises him he’s not going to die and asks Mr. Orange if he’s a doctor because if he isn’t a doctor then he can’t say he’s going to die. When they get back to the rendezvous point. Joe’s going to send a Doctor and Mr. Orange is going to be ok. Mr. White makes Mr. Orange say he’s going to be ok.

Mr. White hauls Mr. Orange into an empty warehouse talking to him to keep him awake. He lays Mr. Orange down on a small ramp and lays down beside him. He tells Mr. Orange to say that they’re waiting for Joe. Mr. Orange’s voice is high and effeminate when he asks Mr. White to hold him. Mr. White combs Mr. Orange’s hair. Their faces are close and Mr. White’s face looks like he’s in as much pain as Mr. Orange. They both whimper. Mr. White tells Mr. Orange he’s not going to die. He tells him to relax. Mr. Orange is full of gratitude. “Bless your heart,” he says looking up at Mr. White then asking to be taken to the hospital but Mr. White says no. Mr. Orange begs him, promising not to tell the cops anything. Mr. White tells Mr. Orange that he won’t die from the stomach wound. 

Mr. Pink enters the warehouse yelling that they were setup. He asks Mr. White what happened to Mr. Brown. He’s dead, Mr. White says. Mr. Pink thinks that someone on the inside ratted out. Mr. White asks how he can be sure of this? Mr. Pink: “Where did all this cops come from? There were no sirens; when the alarm goes off, there’s a four minute average response time. In 1 minute there were 17 cops outside—they were already there! The 2nd wave responded to the silent alarm. The cops were waiting for them!” 

Mr. White’s still laying on the floor beside Orange. There was so much stuff going on that he hadn’t had time to consider these circumstances. Mr. Pink is anxious because he doesn’t think the warehouse is safe; the cops could already know about the hideout. White and Pink go in another room to talk. Mr. Pink says that he wishes he’d never gotten himself involved with this job but he ignored his gut and got involved anyway for the money. His gut told him to walk and he didn’t listen to it. He got the same feeling when he got caught buying weed.

Mr. Pink splashes water in his face. Mr. White offers him a cigarette to mellow out. Mr. Pink quit smoking but takes the cigarette from Mr. White. They recount the bungled heist.

Mr. White says “We get there; the alarm gets tripped; the cops appear out of nowhere.”

Mr. Pink refreshes Mr. White’s memory: “The cops didn’t show after the alarm went off.”

Mr. White disagrees with this but Mr. Pink is 100% sure that the police didn’t arrive until Mr. Blonde started shooting the employees. Mr. White tries to tell Mr. Pink his real name but Mr. Pink cuts him off.

Mr. White asks Pink how he escaped the scene and the cops. “I shot my way out,” Mr. Pink tells him.

Flashback

Mr. Pink running for his life with 3 cops in pursuit yelling at pedestrians on the sidewalk to get out of their way. Car runs over Mr. Pink at an intersection and he drags the female driver out of the car, shoots at cops (hitting and killing 1) and takes car.

Present

Mr. Pink asks Mr. White if he ever killed anyone and Mr. White says “Not real people, just cops. What was Mr. Blonde thinking?” White calls Mr. Blonde a madman for shooting up the place and Mr. Pink chimes in saying “Everybody panics but you get yourself together and get ahold of the situation.”

Mr. White calls Blonde an unpredictable psychopath. “He even killed the black girl at the diamond wholesalers’. After cops arrived, it was every man for himself.” The whereabouts of Mr. Blonde and Blue are unknown. Mr. Pink says that he got away with the diamonds. They are stashed in a safe place but they have to leave the warehouse before the cops show. White wants to wait to hear from Mr. Blue and Mr. Blonde but, Pink tells him, they may have been caught already or killed.

Mr. White says he’s jinxed. A couple of jobs back on a 4 man job, 1 of the guys turned out to be an undercover cop but luckily they found out in time and canceled that job. If someone did rat them out, who could it be—Mr. Blue, Blonde, Brown, Joe? Joe could have ratted them out because he set the whole thing up, Pink says but White rules Joe out. Pink says that they can’t trust anybody then tells White that he could be the rat to which White tells Pink that he could be the rat. To this, Mr. Pink compliments Mr. White on finally using his head: “You can’t trust anybody. For all we know, Mr. Orange is the rat.” As he had ruled out Joe as being the rat simply because they were buddies, White rules out Mr. Orange, too, on the strength that he (Orange) had taken a bullet to the belly (but he didn’t take the shot from a cop but a woman; important note).

White tells Pink not to call Orange a rat. Pink leaves to take a piss.

Flashback: Mr. White

Mr. White is in Joe’s office. Joe asks him how a former crime partner named Alabama is doing. 

White hasn’t seen the woman in 1 1/2 years. They did 4 jobs together and decided to call it quits. She hooked up with another partner.

Joe lays out the caper to Mr. White: it’s a 5 man job; a diamond wholesaler; a 2 minute window before the cops arrive; it’s in broad daylight during business hours; twenty employees; lax security; the diamonds are from Israel; the cut is good!

Present

Mr. Pink wants to leave the warehouse and check into a hotel for a few days. Mr. Orange is quiet and motionless. Mr. Pink looks worried and Mr. White checks to Mr. Orange’s pulse—he’s not dead, just asleep. But without medical attention, he will die. 

Pink shakes his head: the hospital is out of the question. White tells Pink that without medical attention, Orange won’t last the night. White feels responsible for Orange getting shot. Pink says they should leave warehouse but Orange is in too much pain and White won’t move him and wants to wait to hear from Joe who can get a doctor for Orange.

Pink isn’t sure if Joe can be trusted, especially given the fact that the old man was supposed to be at the warehouse already. And even if Joe is legit, he won’t be happy about the botched heist and the dead cops and civilians. “If I were him, I’d put as much distance between myself and this mess as possible,” Pink says.

Mr. White tells Pink that Mr. Orange begged him to take him to Dr. “If we don’t, he’ll die.”

Pink says that since Orange doesn’t know who they are, it’ll be cool to drop him off at the hospital. White admits to telling Orange his real name, including where he is from. It was just a natural conversation, he tells Pink who becomes infuriated. Why, Pink asks White, would you tell him your name?

Because Orange asked him, White says. “We just got away from the cops. He just got shot, my fault! He was covered with blood, screaming, I tried to comfort him. What was I supposed to do, tell him I’m sorry? Is it against the rules?”

Mr. Pink shakes his head in disbelief.

“Fuck you and fuck Joe!” White says. 

Pink mocks him: “I’m sure it was a beautiful scene.”

White tells Pink not to patronize him. 

Pink asks White if he has a rap sheet and White says yeah. Pink scoffs and says “Now, a) he (Orange) knows your name; b) where you’re from; c) what you look like; and d) what your specialty is.”

White tells Pink to back off. Pink tells him that they are not taking Orange to the hospital. 

White says that if they don’t Orange will die.

Pink gives a “so what” shrug. “Some guys are lucky, some ain’t.”

They tussle and Pink is knocked to the floor. White kicks him and they draw their guns on each other. Pink accuses White of acting like an amateur: “They get close to you, they get close to me and that can’t happen.”

Mr. Pink: “I didn’t create the situation, I’m dealing with it. Fifteen minutes ago, you almost told me your name. If you have a problem, look in the mirror.”

Mr. Blonde watches them from a distance, amused. They’re surprised to see him. White asks him what happened to Mr. Blue? Mr. Blonde looks amused. White tells him to start talking; someone ratted them out which means that the warehouse isn’t safe. 

Blonde orders them to stay put. White blames Blonde for the bungled heist, for starting everything by shooting employees.

Blonde says that he shot them because they set off alarm. White calls Blonde an asshole and accuses the man of nearly killing him, too: “If I’d known what kind of maniac you were I never would have worked with you!” 

Blonde calls Mr. White out and Pink has to put himself between them.

Pink: “Are we professional?” He reasons with Mr. White: “Mr. Blonde is too loony to be working with the cops.” 

The men relax and Blonde tells them to follow him outside to see what’s in the trunk of his car. Pink wants to leave and Blonde tells him they can’t because Nice Guy Eddie’s on the way.

Outside, Blonde opens the trunk of his car to show them the cop he kidnapped at the diamond heist. 

Flashback: Mr. Blonde

Joe is in his office on the with an inmate who called to thank him for sending a care package. Joe’s son, Nice guy Eddie, brings in Mr. Blonde calling him by his real name, Vic Vega. Joe gives Vic a warm hug and tells him to sit down. Joe pours him a glass of Remy Martin and asks him how his parole officer’s treating him. 

Seymour Scagnetti is an asshole, Vic says, who won’t let him leave the halfway house. Vic thanks Joe for sending care packages when he was locked up. Joe blows this off: how could he forget him? It was the least he could do; wish he could have done more. Joe asks Vic about what he plans to do now that he’s a free man. Eddie walks into the office and he and Vic tussle playfully until Joe tells them to stop. They are both out of breath and Eddie accuses Vic, who just finished a 4 year bid, of trying to fuck him.

Joe tells Eddie that Vic has a strict parole officer who won’t let him out of the halfway house unless he’s got a job. He can’t work for Joe and Eddie if he’s got to worry about a 10:00pm curfew. Eddie can get him a job in Long Beach working on the docks and he won’t even have to work because they’ll clock him in and out. If the P.O. makes a surprise visit to job, that’s the day they tell the P.O. that they sent Vic to Tustin to pick up a load. Part of the job in Long Beach involves going to different places. Eddie’ll take him out to Long Beach tomorrow to introduce him to foreman. However, Vic doesn’t want to go to Long Beach; he wants to go back to work for Joe. They b.s. him about not having any of that kind of work for a moment or 2 before Eddie asks Joe if they can bring Vic in on a new job they’re putting together since he always been good luck for them. They trust Vic because he’s already done time for Joe.

Present 

Scene swaps between Nice Guy Eddie in his car on the phone and robbers in warehouse beating the cop Mr. Blonde kidnapped: 

Car: Nice guy Eddie tells Dove that Mr. Blonde is driving around with a cop in the trunk of his car.

Warehouse: Robbers taking turns beating the cop in warehouse. 

Car: Vince (Mr. Blonde) told Eddie about botched job and the cop he took as a hostage. Eddie tells Dove that he doesn’t know who’s got the loot or who’s lying.

Warehouse: White and Pink tie the cop to a chair.

Car: Eddie tells Dove that he’s on his way to the warehouse.

Warehouse: Pink and White beating the cop to get him to tell them who the rat is. Eddie shows up and Pink tells him that they were set up by someone on the inside. 

Eddie tells them that he isn’t the rat. Blonde asks Eddie where Joe is. White asks Eddie to call somebody to help Orange. Eddie asks about Mr. Brown. He’s dead, and nobody knows what happened to Mr. Blue. Eddie asks them about the diamonds. Pink says that he hid them in a safe place.

Pink, White, and Eddie have to leave and move the cars away from the warehouse. White isn’t comfortable with leaving Blonde alone with the cop. Blonde is the 1 who started all the killing at the diamond wholesaler earlier. Blonde says the hostages had reached for the alarm. Pink insists they were set up. Pink, White and Eddie leave and Blonde removes his jacket and asks the cop to tell him who ratted. Cop insists he doesn’t know. He’s only been with the force 8 months. He points out that even his-Mr. Blonde’s—boss said it wasn’t a setup. 

“I don’t have a boss,” Blonde says, smacking the cop and turning on the radio. He tells the cop that he’s going to torture him because he likes torturing cops. He gags the cop with duct tape and puts on K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the 70s (Stealer’s Wheel: ’Stuck in the middle with you’) and takes out a straight razor. He goes over to take a look at Mr. Orange then breaks into a dancing strut singing along to the song. The cop is afraid; his eyes are wide open. Without warning, White slashes the cop’s face. Then, he cuts off his right ear and talks into it like a CB mic and laughs. He goes outside to his car to get a can of gas and returns dousing the cop who has worked the gag off and is pleading and telling Blonde that he’s married and has a kid. Blonde is still dancing to the song and pouring gas out around the cop. He pulls out his cigarette lighter but before he can flick it Mr. Orange shoots him dead. Orange falls back as spent as his pistol and asks the cop his name. 

Marvin Nash, the cop says. Orange tells Marvin he’s a cop but Marvin already knows this. Orange’s real name is Freddy Nuendyke. They were introduced 5 years ago. Marvin asks Freddy how he looks after having his ear cut off. Then Marvin starts weeping calling Blonde a sick fuck and a bastard. Freddie tells Marvin that the cops are waiting a block away.

Marvin can’t believe it; the cops could have stormed the hideout and saved him from getting his ear cut off! They couldn’t, Freddie tells him, because they are waiting for Joe to come to hideout.

Flashback: Mr. Orange

Freddie meets with a Black undercover cop at a diner at night.

He tells the Black cop that Joe has brought him in on the diamond heist. Freddie tells the cop that he’s up Joe’s ass (remember, he’s the guy with the big dick in Madonna’s song ‘Like a Virgin’).

This is good news and they hug. 

Freddie tells the cop how he got into Joe’s crew. Nice Guy Eddie drives him to a bar called Smokey Pete’s in Gardena where he meets Mr. White whom he never saw before. Mr. White is from out of town and he and Joe seem like buddies.

Freddie tells the cop that he and White talked about the Milwaukee Brewers. White claimed to have made a killing off the team the night before.

Black cop concludes that White is from Wisconsin because he is a Brewers fan. This also means that the Milwaukee police have a rap sheet on him. Cop tells Freddie to go through the Milwaukee police records and connect White’s name to his mugshot. Cops shakes Freddie’s hand. 

Long Beach Mike, who’s in Nice Guy Eddie’s crew, refers Freddie to Nice Guy Eddie. Long Beach Mike knows Freddie is a cop and Freddie asks the Black cop to cut Long Beach some slack. Black cop says fuck no. Long Beach is selling out his crew and can’t be trusted. 

Black cop tells Freddie to stay cold and fuck Long Beach.

Cop asks Freddie if he used the commode story. 

Rooftop

Black cops gives Freddie a script to read describing a drug deal and something funny that happens on this deal involving a bathroom. He tells Freddie that he has to know every detail about this fictional bathroom and make the script his own, reciting it over and over until it becomes natural.

Montage:

• Freddie recites the script in his apartment
• Freddie blending into a wall in the backdrop that’s covered with graffiti reciting the script to the Black cop

Flashback

In a bar, Freddie tells his bathroom story to Joe and the gang. Back in ’86, some woman wanted him to help her sell a brick of weed. Her brother usually helped her but he was locked up in county. Mr. White asks Freddie what her brother is locked up for. Traffic tickets, Freddie says picking up his story without missing a beat. He and this woman were supposed to meet with the buyer at the train station. Mike cuts in again to ask Freddie if he had the weed on him and Freddie tells him that the buyer needed the weed right away; yes.

Commode story

At the train station, Freddie and the woman wait for the buyer. Freddie has the weed in a carry on and when he goes to the bathroom to piss there are 4 LA cops a police dog there. The dog barks at him like he can smell the weed in his bag.

One of the cops shares a story of some Mexican guy he’d pulled over, making racist and sexist comments about the Mexican’s wife or girlfriend. Orange washes his hands and they look at him (something Freddie probably heard on the job)

Freddie dries his hands under the blower which drowns out the dog barking at him. Freddie tells all of this to his fellow cop and describes Joe Cabot as looking like the ‘Thing’ of the Fantastic Four.

Flashback

Mike calls Freddie to let him know they are downstairs in the car waiting to take him to meet Joe. Freddie  puts on his jacket, hides a couple of guns on his body (There’s a multicolored crucifix by the door) and gets a wedding band out of a jar of change. Freddie looks in the mirror and tells himself that he’s super cool and they believe the fake stories he’d told them.

Freddie gets in the car with Nice Guy Eddie and Mr. White. They are tailed by an unmarked cop car (I can’t stop this feeling is playing on the radio).

Freddie and Pink are in the backseat; Eddie and White are in the front.

Pink says that Black women don’t put up with the same shit that White bitches put up with. Eddie agrees. White disagrees and says the Blacks he knows treat Black women like shit.

Eddie recounts a Black waitress named E. Lois who worked at one of his dad’s clubs. She was looked like Christy Love off the old 70’s television show. One day, he came in the club and asked the bartender, a “wetback” named Carlos, for Lady E who was married to a jerk and abuser. One day, he got drunk and falls asleep on the couch. She got some glue and glued his dick to his stomach. 

Warehouse

Joe Cabot stands in front of a chalkboard. The robbers are all sitting in chairs joking  and laughing with each other. Joe tells them a joke of 5 men in San Quentin wondering how they got there. The men stop laughing and pay attention.

Joe gives each man a color and tells them not to share real names or other personal info with each other. Pink thinks his color is “faggish” and asks for another name and why they can’t pick their own colors. Joe tells him that when they tried picking their own names last time, everybody was fighting over who was going to be Mr. Black. Mr. Brown says his color is too close to being Mr. Shit.

Mr. White and Freddie inside car facing diamond wholesaler and going over their plan on robbing the place. They take the manager in back and make him give up the diamonds. Alarms won’t go off since no display cases will be bothered.

White is very cold in his planning. He tells Freddy to hit anybody that gives him any trouble. The sight of blood will set them down. If the manager gives you trouble break him in two. Cut off his baby finger. 

Robbery

Mr. Brown rams getaway car into parked car. White and Freddie hop out. Police sirens grow louder. Blood oozes out of a hole in Mr. Brown’s forehead; he’s been shot!

Pink and White leave Brown in car. Squad car shows and White shoots it up, killing both cops inside. Freddie watches this helplessly; he can’t blow his cover. They stop a car and female driver shoots Freddy in the belly. They take car. Freddy crying and bleeding to death in the back seat

Present

Back in the warehouse, Marvin, the cop, wakes up. Eddie, Pink, and White return and find Mr. Blonde dead. Eddie asks what happened and Freddie tells them that Blonde had cut off Marvin’s ear and was going to burn him alive. Eddie aims his pistol at Marvin and blows him away. Freddie tells them that Blonde was going to kill him, shoot them when they got back, and leave with diamonds. Eddie knows that Freddie is lying but Mr. White backs up Freddie’s story. Blonde was a psycho anyway. Eddie still doesn’t buy it. Pink goes over to look at the dead cop’s cut off ear. White argues with Eddie who wasn’t there to see how Blonde acted at the robbery. Eddie goes over the facts: Mr. Blonde was going to kill them, us (Mike, White, Pink) and take diamonds? 

Freddie swears to this on his mother’s soul.

Eddie tells Freddie that Blonde did 4 years for his father after getting caught with stolen merchandise. He could have ratted on Joe and walked free but instead he did his time like a man.

Joe walks in and tells everybody that Freddie is a cop. White defends Freddie saying they shouldn’t get emotional. Joe tells White that Freddie is the only 1 he wasn’t 100% sure of. He should have trusted his instincts but didn’t. “You don’t need proof when you have instinct,” he tells White. Joe aims his gun at Freddie. White aims his gun at Joe. Mike aims his gun at White. 

Pink watches from the sidelines trying to talk sense into them, reminding them that they are supposed to be professionals.

White warns Joe not to shoot Freddie or he’ll shoot him. Mike tells White to put down his gun. 

They all shoot; Mike and Joe die. White is wounded and lays with Freddy. Pink leaves with he diamonds.

Orange and White in bad shape. White hears the police sirens approaching and apologizes to Freddie. “We’re doing time,” he says. Freddie apologizes and admits to being a cop. White puts his gun to  Freddie’s head. Cops bust in and tell White to put down his gun. They shoot White. The end (put the lime in the coconut)

Scene by scene analysis of Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'

Quentin Tarantino's 'Reservoir Dogs'

Title 1 (0:01-7:36) (7:31) Stop after men leave diner

Summary

The film opens in a diner where 6 men in black suits and black ties are siting around a table discussing Madonna’s song “Like a Virgin.” Mr. Brown says that the song is about a promiscuous woman who finally meets a guy with a dick big enough that makes her feel  pain, like the very 1st time, like a virgin. The boss has his a little black book open trying to place the name Toby Wong. Mr. White snatches the book away and Mr. Blonde asks the boss in a playful way if he wants him to shoot Mr. White. The boss’ son, Nice Guy Eddie, asks everybody if they listen to a radio program called K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Weekend. A couple of them mention their favorite songs. Pink likes the song ‘Heartbeat (It’s a love beat)’

Boss’ son likes ‘The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia.’ The cheating wife singing this song is the 1 who shot Andy (This is an analogy of how Mr. Orange plays Mr. White). Boss gets up to go to take care of the bill and tells the guys to throw in a tip for the waitress. Everybody throws in except for Mr. Pink who doesn’t feel obligated to do so just because society’s norms says he should. 

He doesn’t care about how little waitresses earn; they can quit. 

Analysis

The colors in this film alternate in meaning according to the different situations. Sometimes the colors refer to race, other times they refer to gender, and at other times they represent virtues like naiveté or innocence, or—as in the discussion in this scene—virginity as the song ‘Like a Virgin’ is describing Mr. White, who, like Madonna's song, is fucked by someone who makes him feel like a virgin according to the explanation given by Mr. Brown.

Like a virgin, Mr. White never got caught on a job, he almost got caught—he tells Mr. Pink— but his instincts told him one of the guys was undercover and he pulled out. In this respect—not ever having been “fucked” by an undercover cop, Mr. White is a virgin. Mr. Orange, in Madonna’s song ‘Like a Virgin,’ is the dude with the giant penis that makes her feel like a virgin. Remember, Mr. White tells Mr. Pink at the beginning of the film that he had to pull out of a job because his instincts told him that one of the guys was a cop. The reason Mr. White doesn’t get this feeling about Mr. Orange is because they had gotten too close after Mr. Orange got shot in the belly. That shot to his belly arouses feminine instincts in Mr. White that blinds him to reason and objectivity. An early hint that Mr. White would become too close to Orange is them sitting next to each other in the diner. It is easy to become subjective being too close to something or someone, any situation. To see things for what they are, we need some distance which is shown in how close White and Orange are sitting together relative to Mr. Pink who is sitting on the other side of the table. Mr. Pink’s objectivity is represented by his coldness and detachment which comes through when he gives his reasons for not being a tipper. His callousness shows that he doesn’t let his emotions override his principles and that he is able to cut off his emotions and think rationally, foreshadowing the tension between he and Mr. White over whether or not Mr. Orange is a cop. Another interesting thing about Mr. Pink not tipping is that a “tipper” is the same thing as a snitch. This explains the sour look on Mr. Orange’s face in this scene, sour not just on account of Mr. Pink being a cheapskate, but sour because he knows that Mr. Pink isn’t naive and he’s been, in the metaphor of Madonna’s song, “fucked” before. In another allusion to sex and the Like a Virgin metaphor, Mr. Pink tells his cop mentor “I’m up his ass,” meaning Joe’s ass.

Also in this scene,  Mr. Pink explains his reasons for not tipping, he asks Mr. White why society says he should tip waitresses and not tip a worker at McDonalds when they are both serving food to customers. His view foreshadows the cynical view he has of his fellow robbers after the diamond heist and this also foreshadows Mr. White discounting Mr. Orange as the undercover cop who rats them out. 

This banter is significant in why Mr. Pink and Mr. White are opposites when it comes to how they think. Mr. White in this conversation, takes the liberal compassionate view; Mr. Pink is cold and refuses to tip because of what society thinks. His views are conservative and disconnected which is why he doesn’t put snitching past Mr. Orange in the diamond heist

Mr. Orange and Mr. White are sitting next to each other suggesting their closeness. Mr. Orange listens to Mr. Pink with a sneer own his face (Mr. Pink is the wise brother who’s hip to the games and Mr. Orange senses this

footnote (s): from wikipedia

Title 2 (4) (11:09-20:19) (9:10) Stop after Pink says “So I blasted my way out.”

Summary

Mr. White hauls Mr. Orange into an empty warehouse talking to him to keep him awake. He lays Mr. Orange down on a small ramp and lays down beside him. He tells Mr. Orange to say that they’re waiting for Joe. Mr. Orange’s voice is high and effeminate when he asks Mr. White to hold him. Mr. White combs Mr. Orange’s hair. Their faces are close and Mr. White’s face looks like he’s in as much pain as Mr. Orange. They both whimper. Mr. White tells Mr. Orange he’s not going to die. He tells him to relax. Mr. Orange is full of gratitude. “Bless your heart,” he says looking up at Mr. White then asking to be taken to the hospital but Mr. White says no. Mr. Orange begs him, promising not to tell the cops anything. Mr. White tells Mr. Orange that he won’t die from the stomach wound. 

Mr. Pink enters the warehouse yelling that they were setup. 

Analysis

this is important and shows Mr. White’s weak tendencies of trusting and his weakness for volunteering info. Also, Mr. White is standing by a mirror showing his selection. This means that his alias and identity are separate and in conflict. Mr. Pink doesn’t have a reflection which means that there is no conflict between his alias and true identity. This explains why Mr. White almost reveals his real name to Mr. Pink.

The “gut” plays a big role in this film: 2 Corinthians 5:7-“For we walk by faith, not by sight.”  Throughout the film, characters refer to their instincts, their gut, their intuition. Following the heist, Mr. Pink kicks himself for not following his gut and pulling out of the heist; Mr. Pink says he avoided getting caught in a previous job by following his instincts; at the end of the film, Joe Cabott kicks himself for ignoring his gut feeling about Mr. Orange. Our instincts are our 6th sense, there to detect what we can’t pick up on the surface. The colors Joe names the robbers have an obvious purpose but the colors also metaphors serve 2 symbolic functions: 1) to put everybody on an even playing field where they all have to rely on their instincts, since Joe orders them not to share any of their personal information; and 2) the colors themselves, within the context of trust, are all races, all demographics—rich, poor, etc.— and how none of us have a monopoly on evil, or in this case, deception. This is why Mr. Pink doesn’t trust anybody because he knows that no man or woman is above evil; and this is also why Mr. White trusts Mr. Orange, discounting even the possibility he could be an undercover cop simply because he is bleeding to death from a gunshot wound to the belly. Being a victim doesn’t make him innocent. Orange, that is. 

It is an accepted belief that women possess a special instinct over men known as female intuition. This is why, in the film, Mr. Orange is the only robber who is shot in the “gut” by a WOMAN who points him out as the undercover cop. Backing up this assessment is Mr. Pink, whose color pink is associated with femininity. This is why he suspects Mr. Orange as a cop right off the bat. Women can sense when a man is lying and the man in this equation and Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ song is Mr. Orange. Another thing: at the beginning of the film, Joe has a little black book open trying to figure out a name in it. But it’s not the name that has him puzzled, it’s his “gut” that is bothering him. Mr. Orange is also at the table and this is why at the end of the film, Joe says that he felt something in his gut about Mr. Orange that didn’t feel right. Him looking in his little black book and trying to figure out who Toby Wong is.  

footnote (s):

Title 3 (7) (21:49-26:12) (4:25) Stop after Mr. Pink asks where the commode is.

Summary

Mr. White says he’s jinxed. A couple of jobs back on a 4 man job, 1 of the guys turned out to be an undercover cop but luckily they found out in time and canceled that job. If someone did rat them out, who could it be—Mr. Blue, Blonde, Brown, Joe? Joe could have ratted them out because he set the whole thing up, Pink says but White rules Joe out. 

Pink says that they can’t trust anybody then tells White that he could be the rat to which White tells Pink that he could be the rat. To this, Mr. Pink compliments Mr. White on finally using his head: “You can’t trust anybody. For all we know, Mr. Orange is the rat.” As he had ruled out Joe as being the rat simply because they were buddies, White rules out Mr. Orange, too, on the strength that he (Orange) had taken a bullet to the belly (but he didn’t take the shot from a cop but a woman; important note).

Analysis

Remember the diner scene at the beginning of the film showing White kidding around with Joe over the old man’s little black book. Their closeness was obvious and this is why White can’t entertain Joe as the potential rat.

Again, White’s objectivity and judgement are clouded by his feelings, the wrong kind of feelings for the business they are in. Mr. Orange is ruled out simply for having taken a shot in the belly, a shot, ironically, fired by a woman and not a cop.

It is an accepted belief that women possess a special instinct over men known as female intuition. This is why, in the film, Mr. Orange is the only robber who is shot in the “gut” by a WOMAN who points him out as the undercover cop. Backing up this assessment is Mr. Pink, whose color pink is associated with femininity. This is why he suspects Mr. Orange as a cop right off the bat. Women can sense when a man is lying and the man in this equation and Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’ song is Mr. Orange. Another thing: at the beginning of the film, Joe has a little black book open trying to figure out a name in it. But it’s not the name that has him puzzled, it’s his “gut” that is bothering him. Mr. Orange is also at the table and this is why at the end of the film, Joe says that he felt something in his gut about Mr. Orange that didn’t feel right. Him looking in his little black book and trying to figure out who Toby Wong is. 

Title 4 (9) (28:13-37:42) (9:29) Stop after robbers take cop out of car.

Summary

Mr. White tells Mr. Pink the-in the heat of the moment after Mr. Orange got shot-he told Mr. Orange his real name and where he’s from. Mr. Blonde shows up with a cop he kidnapped from the heist. 

Analysis

Mr. Pink’s statement “They get close to you, they get close to me and that can’t happen,” illustrates how all of our lives are connected; what affects 1 affects all. Matthew 12:25–“But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.” Pink and White are the rational and emotional aspects of the human psyche contending with each other. On one hand, Pink is the cold mathematical mind that can discern right from wrong; and on the other hand, White is acting out of his emotions. Pink cannot leave because he and White are 1. If they agreed on Pink’s side, they would have a good chance of salvaging the botched heist. But being that they are in conflict on the emotional side of Mr. White, they wind up losing everything)

Telling Blonde that he wouldn’t have worked with him had he known the type of person he is the very reason he, Mr. White, should not have disclosed his personal information to Mr. Pink.

Title 5 (15) (1:03:00-1:13:45) (10:45) Stop after Freddie dries his hands in commode

Summary

Freddie is trained to go undercover by a fellow undercover cop. He memorizes a script describing a fictitious drug deal that he shares with Joe and the other robbers so they will think that he has a criminal past. 

Analysis

Black cop teaches Freddie the art of deception. Everything he tells Freddie not to do like being soft or sympathetic is exactly what White ignores in how he deals with Freddie. The set design in this scene where he reads the script in front of the wall of graffiti shows him disappearing into it as though becoming the lie he is pretending to be as the robber.

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Title 6 (17) (1:16:39-1:26:45) (10:06) Stop after Freddie says he’s going to die.

Summary

Joe, the boss, goes over the diamond heist with the robbers. He gives them colors for their names. Diamond heist goes sour and Mr. Pink is shot in the stomach. 

Analysis

The men are in a car and on their way to meet the boss, Joe, to go over the heist. They strike up what seems like a random discussion on Black women and White women and how much the women take off their men. Pink insists that Black women and White women differ in how much abuse and mistreatment they take off men. Black women don’t take the abuse from men that White women take. The Black women who takes no stuff is him and the White women who are passive is Mr. White. This is also why Joe, when naming the robbers, tells them that they don’t get to choose their own names. In the past, everyone wanted to be Mr. Black because Mr. Black, referring to Pink’s assessment of Black women, don’t take any shit. Again, Tarantino uses colorful dialogue exchanges to foreshadow the characters and plot. Also, going back to 1 of the themes in this film, “the gut,” notice that Freddie is shot in the gut to reinforce this theme. And he is also shot by a woman, keeping in line with the so called feminine intuition that is reinforced by the color pink which is associated with femininity and which also explains Mr. Pink’s distrust of Mr. Orange. 

footnote (s): from wikipedia

Title 7 (21) (1:21:07-1:34:29) (13:22) Stop after Freddie tells White he’s a cop.

Summary

Eddie, White, and Pink return to the warehouse and finds Blonde dead. Freddie tells them Blonde was going to make off with the diamonds. Joe shoes up and accuses Freddie of being a cop. Joe, White, and Eddie shoot each other. Freddie tells White he’s a cop. The police bust in the warehouse and shoot White. 

Analysis

This is why Joe kept looking in his little black book; something bothered him. Again, I refer to 2 Corinthians 5:7-“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” Freddie is the only robber who’s real identity isn’t known to Joe which is why he kept looking at his little black book in the beginning of the film. Seeing the sight of blood on Mr. Pink’s stomach aroused Mr. White’s emotions which, in turn, short circuited his instincts that would have warned him that Freddie was a rat.