9) Stuck In The Middle With You – Reservoir Dogs
“Well, I don’t know why I came here tonight, I got the feeling that something ain’t right.” And with that cheery opening to Stealers Wheel’s innocent pop earworm begins one of the most harrowing and horrifying scenes in all of Quentin Tarantino’s filmography.
As the devilish Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) does a little dance to the song while menacing a captured cop with a straight razor, Reservoir Dogs morphs from a strong crime drama into something much more twisted and deviously enjoyable. It took some serious balls for Tarantino to select such a casually airy number for a pivotal scene, but the effect is tremendous, imparting Mr. Blonde’s insouciant sadism with a stylistic flourish that we’ve since seen almost exclusively in the director’s work.
Looking back on this scene, it’s impossible to disentangle Stuck in the Middle with You from the cop’s agonized screams and Blonde’s languid dance moves – Tarantino is said to have penned the scene with the song in mind, an inspired choice that really works. On paper, it must have be terribly hard for Tarantino to impart the full force of this scene. Thankfully he followed through with his vision, because he created one of the most memorable and deliciously cool torture scenes in cinematic history.
Published: Aug 14, 2014 11:56 am