Reservoir Dogs: 15th Anniversary Edition

Few debut films have made as much of an impact as Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, an instant classic that was gripping, horrifying and hilarious—sometimes all at once. Fifteen years later, the film itself is still as powerful and taut as ever, and thanks to a remastered video transfer and a new six-channel soundtrack, has never looked or sounded better. The special features include three deleted scenes, two alternate takes and the usual dreg: a thankfully brief retrospective featuring insipid observations from the likes of the corpulent Harry Knowles, biographies on the characters and other forgettable fluff. Annoyingly, a series of interviews with the cast that was included with the previous edition is inexplicably absent. Despite the new transfer and the quirky packaging (a tin gas can that opens to reveal the two DVDs stored in an oversized matchbook), this release—the third in less than 10 years—can’t help but seem like a cheap attempt to cash in one more time before high definition becomes the norm.