SOURCE: "Partners in Crime," in New Statesman & Society, January 8, 1993, pp. 34, 36.

In the following review, Romney offers favorable assessment of Reservoir Dogs.

Who said the devil doesn't have all the best tunes? In 1971, A Clockwork Orange shocked everyone rigid because its droog Alex liked to choreograph his ultraviolence to a Beethoven soundtrack. Twenty years on, things are a little more flip. In Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (on general release), Michael Madsen's psycho gangster Mr Blonde tortures a policeman to Stealer's Wheel singing "Stuck In The Middle with You".

It's a deeply unsettling scene to watch, not just for the violence itself, but also for Madsen's jokey, debonnaire little dance—a gruesome flirtation with the victim, and with the audience. It works horribly well. I saw the film at a late-night public preview and the general atmosphere was nervy, to say the least; there were uneasy titters throughout, but the...