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Quentin Tarantino has never hidden the fact that he is repeating scenes and themes from other films. That doesn’t make his films any less original or less interesting. Some would say that his conscientious odes add legitimacy to his art, proving his extensive knowledge and study of the art form.
Plus, it’s an interesting tip. Only the most discerning viewers noticed what he was doing. The rest of the simple thought of “Pulp Fiction” and “Kill Bill” was cool without realizing that part of the reason we love them is that they tap into an internalized nostalgia.
“Reservation Dogs” reminds me of this because of its title and cinematic style, with indie grain encrusted visuals from the 1990s. But series co-creators and executive producers Taika Waititi and Sterlin Harjo aren’t content to paint a stylized criminal caper on a ground floor.
They did something much truer, a comedy about four kids who are fluent in popular culture, mostly hip-hop. Everyone around them acts like they’re gangsters living in a hoodie movie. If so, this movie is not “Menace II Society”. Think “Friday,” with a touch of “The Goonies” for added flavor.
Film buffs tend to view films upon films in reverent terms, especially when blessed establishment filmmakers do them. “Reservation Dogs” isn’t quite that, but it’s a show that knows its audiences watch a lot of movies and formulate their ideas about the world out of such fictions.
But the way Waititi and Harjo use cinematic callbacks is unique. They travel through our collective pop culture memories to tell a familiar story with Indigenous actors. And they use the fact that we’ve never seen such storylines set in rural Oklahoma, or written and filmed by native creators, to tell non-natives something about themselves, especially with the expectation of non-whites to be poured into white culture without expectation of reciprocity.
And everything is done with hilarity. From front to back, each episode unfolds with a low-key, cohesive humor that invites you to float with it, placing you firmly in this world of crazy, friendly neighbors and relatives. The result is hysterical liberating.
Of course, Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) and her best friend Elora Danan (Devery Jacobs) and their criminal partners Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) and Cheese (Lane Factor) have one thing in common with “The counterparts of the Reservoir Dogs, in that they are a bunch of thieves.
But no one plans to steal diamonds where they live. Low-stakes petty theft is their job, with the exception of a series opening theft equal in its daring by its ridiculousness. Their flight is intended to fund a move to California, a place that looms large in their imaginations as some sort of promised land.
Although the title has a different connotation, “Reservation Dogs” is above all a slice-of-life comedy that allows us to accompany the characters on very regular adventures. Bear suffers an injury requiring a trip to the local clinic where jaded staff run the place like an impenetrable bureaucracy. Another quest leads them to Elora Danan’s uncle, an unstoppable brawler at the time who has since morphed into a paranoid connoisseur of ancient weed.
He is one of the few important adults, which I would attribute more to the spielbergian approach of the producer for centering the plot on this quartet. We get to know Bear’s mother Rita (a lovely Sarah Podemski) as loving and independent, but her mission is to find a man of means or, failing that, a reliable guy with a stable job.
Harjo, who is the showrunner for the series and co-wrote the first with Waititi, immediately establishes the innate goodness of these children. They are mostly outlaws in their minds, and that is only possible because they live in a place where everyone knows everyone, watched over by a Lighthorseman called Big (Zahn McClarnon) who is more determined to capture aliens than to fight crime.
But the main challenge for children is to avoid boredom. . . until they are confronted by a gang of newcomers determined to dethrone them. Bear, Elora, Willie Jack and Cheese find this confusing as they have never considered themselves to be a gang. Sometimes the fight comes to your door instead of the other way around. And sometimes the battle and the ploys are a way to ward off sadness; we learn early on that the quartet had a fifth member, a friend they lost a year ago.
The smartest cinematic odes of “Reservation Dogs” tell the general public while satirizing the racist tropes perpetuated by Hollywood that have taken root in our culture. Like Spirit Guide Nonsense: Bear finds his while knocked out. Unfortunately for him, his broker in ghostly wisdom was not a heroic legend, but the aimless of life William Knifeman. It tells the story of a battle in Little Bighorn to die a stupid death before you can make any difference.
“I came to the really rugged hill!” he said in his defense, before admitting, “The spirit world … is cold. My nipples are still hard.”
Much of the show’s comedy is woven into dialogue, giving everyone a punchline at some point, though Woon-A-Tai and Jacobs mostly play it straight. (Jacobs has less choice in this regard given Elora Danon’s role as the mastermind of the outfit and the fact that she shares a name with the baby in “Willow,” an anecdote that inspires at least a bit in each episode.)
The biggest reveal is, aside from Alexis’ naturally winning awkwardness as Willie Jack, is McClarnon’s unflinching madness. McClarnon is an actor known for his stoic, barely verbal portrayals in “Fargo” and “Westworld,” and with Big, he plays on that reputation by delivering silly proclamations with total authority – like explaining to Bear why an energy drink is. healthier. than soda. “It’s natural. It’s made of energy.”
Don’t underestimate the prominence of underground hip-hop artists Lil Mike and Funnybone like Mose and Mekko. Their roles in the story fall somewhere between the Hood versions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and a Greek choir, somewhat neutral parts that see everything and cause conflict, mostly to keep things interesting. And the performers brilliantly deploy their perfect syncope.
If “Reservation Dogs” were set in other American locations, people would compare it to “The Wonder Years” and the dynamics of its core quartet to that of the protagonists, “That ’70s Show”. But he’s decidedly one of a kind, using tributes from other shows and movies to strengthen our bond with his heroes by tapping into a shared love for such stories. Accurate and honest film and television portrayals of Indigenous peoples barely exist, which brings an added level of satisfaction and joy to watching this show. It gives the impression that these are people who know and love to laugh and encourage. Best of all, it makes us want to see more shows like this.
“Reservation Dogs” will air Monday, August 9 on FX on Hulu.
https://youtu.be/RoHewFAkrWU
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