MovieChat Forums > Reservoir Dogs (1992) Discussion > Why wear conspicuously matching suits & ...

Why wear conspicuously matching suits & sunglasses?


Rather than more practical outfits and masks to protect their identities? Is a reason ever given? I'm not even going to get started on the utter carelessness/stupidity of them all meeting up to eat breakfast at a diner wearing the exact conspicuous, attention drawing, matching outfits they'll be committing their robbery in shortly thereafter, making all the the more certain to ID them later once the story breaks.

reply

Why did you write this? Those are good points. Now, I can’t see the movie the same way. In old film noir, they all dressed like that. Everyone dressed like that then. Tarantino wanted that cool style. No one dresses like that now. It stands out.

reply

They could've been a group of businessmen or they might've just gotten back from a funeral.

reply

My take on it is; it's an informal uniform for the thieves a uniform the can easily recognize each other but not stand out in, in everyday life.
So should it come to court and it was asked why they had a suit and sun glasses on they could give lots of reasons why. Where as if asked why you had a ski mask on in the middle of summer ? Maybe a bit harder to explain.

reply

This movie is arthouse. It's a tribute to noir of old. You really can't take it realistically.

reply

Why? BECAUSE IT’S SO COOL *face palm*! Tarantino is a perpetual adolescent, and so is his audience. They watch his crap, John Wick, play video games and dream about being with women.

reply

I watch his crap. But I don't really play video games or dream of being with women. 😁

reply

i didnt do anything in the past 24 hours except play videogames and smoke weed and made 50k with my investments during that same time period. John Wick is the only badass cinema they are making anymore in this modern day gay super hero movies snorefest era. perpetual adolescents rule this world, its the people who gave up and grew up who toil and sweat for the scraps

reply

Cringe

reply

Having them all dressed alike would actually make it harder for any witnesses to differentiate between the individual perpetrators.

reply

Thank you mtxmind...it only took a year for someone with common sense to come along.

reply

Yep, this was a similar tactic used in the 1967 French film, The Samurai, where the hitman wore what a lot of the other low-lives and scoundrels wore. When he got picked up by the cops for questioning it was impossible to distinguish him from the other guys in the line-up, so the witnesses couldn't identify him.

reply

Sorry but while that may be somewhat plausible for the robbery itself (Only if we make believe that security cameras aren't a thing anyway) masks would still be 100% more practical & that still doesn't even remotely excuse the idiocy of meeting up for a casual chatty breakfast at a public diner, all wearing their conspicuously matching robbery outfits, accompanied with their very identifiable ring leader & known gangster no less. All of this making it significantly easier to track their movements and connect Joe Cabot to the robbery. Totally nonsensical & silly but Tarantino has always generally prioritized style over realism.

reply

All of this making it significantly easier to track their movements and connect Joe Cabot to the robbery


Except the cops WERE already tracking their movements, and already KNEW Cabot was the ringleader because of their inside man.

Of course, the guys themselves didn't know all this at the time. I also seem to remember when Joe was pitching the job to White, he mentions that there were no cameras at the store & very minimal security.

reply

Except the cops WERE already tracking their movements, and already KNEW Cabot was the ringleader because of their inside man.


I'm not sure why you're stating the obvious (with designated ALL CAPS no less) as if you're making a critical point about something when you even admit yourself in the following sentence that they obviously had no idea that the police were onto them and thus 100% irrelevant regarding the point of their conspicuous public behavior being comically idiotic & reckless.

Also Joe mentions that the security is "pretty lax"(Who knows what qualifies as "lax" in Joe's senile mind) but never told Mr. White anything about there being no cameras. You made that part up.

reply

Security cameras were utter crap when this movie came out. Analog, maybe 240 lines of resolution and recorded onto worn out VHS tapes recording at half SLP speed. You might see something you recognized as a person on those tapes if you were super lucky and the contrast wasn't all blown out.

I agree with the idea that it does complicate individual identification.

reply

I'm sorry but "security cameras were crap in the early 90s" is simply VERY grasping in terms of an attempt to justify the ludicrously idiotic behavior of all of them conspicuously gathering in a very public diner, wearing their matching robbery outfits. Especially when you factor in that security camera footage by that time was already routinely used by law enforcement to identify suspects, "crap quality" or not.

There's just no argument to make where masks aren't 100% more practical for the robbery & that drawing attention to themselves beforehand in a very public location (Notorious gangster & his loud, neon tracksuit wearing son included) wasn't insanely idiotic.

It's perfectly okay to enjoy a movie without feeling the need to legitimize every illogical thing about it. Especially when it was likely a deliberate choice that the director/writer was going for style over realism.

reply

"There's just no argument to make where masks aren't 100% more practical"

It's never a good idea to state that something doesn't exist - it might come back to bite you in the buttocks area.

There's definitely an argument to make.

How about 'people running around in masks in broad daylight would garner a LOT of attention' compared to just 'regular businessman-looking people'?

Practical? How are masks ever PRACTICAL? They may be useful in hiding your face, but practical? I think sunglasses are WAY more practical, as they SHIELD YOUR EYES from the sun and any kind of attempt to shine a flashlight in your face (as cops are known to do).

They also cover a part of your face, making you harder to recognize. Instead of masks, these guys could wear fake beards/moustaches or something, with sunglasses, it would be WAY more practical than cumbersome, clumsy masks that make it harder for you to breathe, make your face feel hot, create a lot of unhealthy effects because your exhaled breath can't exit as efficiently (so you end up breathing in exhaled stuff that should've exited your face area), and so on.

So in what way is all this more practical?

It's an unavoidable fact that sunglasses/facial hair-combo is 100% more practical.

Q.E.D.

Your statement is destroyed.

reply

Forget that, what about the plot hole of the police allowing the robbery to happen in the first place

reply

It was an undercover sting operation to take down Joe Cabot. The cops couldn't legally do anything until the actual crime had been commited. Of course, once Blonde went on his rampage, the whole set up plan went south, so if you're asking why the cops just didn't arrest Joe right then & there, that I cannot say.

reply

Mr Orange had evidence of this crime boss conspiring to rob a bank, that’s all they would need to put him away before anything else happened.

reply

Also, I'm no legal expert but I can only imagine the massive lawsuits & police firings/indictments that would result from the fallout of the law enforcement deliberately allowing a violent crime to take place in order to "catch them in the act", resulting in an absolute bloodbath of innocent civilians & police officers.

reply