Crime Week: Reservoir Dogs (Heists)

Quentin Tarantino has something of a longstanding association with crime, one that goes back to his first feature film Reservoir Dogs. While this low-budget early film displays a lot of the trademarks that easily define Tarantino's later films, such as the rapid-fire dialogue and non-linear storytelling, it often stands out due to the curious way he approaches its subject matter. The story centres around a botched heist, specifically an organized attempt to steal diamonds which does not go quite as planned because one of the people involved is an undercover cop. Tarantino's approach to making a heist film, however remains somewhat unusual.

In the hands of any other director, the plot would likely be much more linear. Most likely, the heist would be the climax of the film. The story would focus on Joe (Lawrence Tierney) finding out about the diamonds and his efforts to recruit a team of professionals to pull off the heist, as well as their efforts to learn about the bank's security systems and to devise the appropriate countermeasures for each. Then at the climax, the actual heist would be shown, where the viewer would see how everything comes together. Then it might be played as a twist when the cops turn out to be ready for them, with the ending focusing on the attempted getaway that leads to them double-crossing each other and everything falling apart. This would be a conventional narrative for a heist film.

Instead, Tarantino opts for something very different. He begins the movie just before the heist is to occur, and then moves straight into its immediate aftermath. In fact, the heist itself goes entirely unseen. All information about what happened comes from what is described by the characters afterwards, many of whom have conflicting accounts of the precise chain of events such as when the cops showed up. Tarantino could have made Reservoir Dogs a more conventional heist film, but he chose not to because he was not interested in the heist itself. What he was clearly more interested in is the characters and their interactions. 

The cast is in general very minimalist, with few other characters besides the central thieves. This group contains a total of six men: Mr. White (Harvey Keitel), Mr. Orange (Tim Roth), Mr. Brown (Quentin Tarantino), Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen), Mr. Pink (Steve Buschemi), and Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), as well as their employers Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney) and "Nice Guy" Eddie (Chris Penn). Most of the film focuses purely on these individuals. Their association is also marked by the choice of wardrobe: all six of the thieves wear an identical suit, with slicked-back hair and similar pairs of sunglasses. 

This wardrobe serves to mark their association with one another. The only ones to deviate from this pattern are Joe and Eddie, both of whom are dressed casually. This creates an obvious contrast between the two different levels of the crime business, and separates the employers from those who are actually performing the theft. However, this is also deconstructed as the movie progresses. After the heist, each of the characters begin to shed parts of their uniform. The sunglasses come off almost immediately, hair becomes messy, and suits become dirty, torn, or altered (such as Mr. Blonde removing his jacket). These changes give each man a more distinct appearance, and with it a distinct personality.

There are next to no female characters in Reservoir Dogs, which may seem like a strange move given Tarantino's later films, and only one black character in a supporting role (Randy Brooks). The only women who make an appearance are the girl Mr. Pink pulls out of her car and the woman who shoots Mr. Orange (Tarantino actually shot a scene with a female cop, but it was removed because he felt it revealed too much about Mr. White too early). Of course, only six of the responding officers are actually seen: Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz), the three who chase Mr. Pink, and the two that are shot by Mr. White. Considering that it was heavily implied that there were a bunch of other cops besides these, it is entirely possible that there were female officers present offscreen. 

This may not be totally unjustified, however, as it fits the personalities of the main characters. These guys are anti-heroes, and are hardly treated as nice people. Joe in particular is shown to be a very old-fashioned criminal, and makes several remarks that indicate he is racist, sexist, and homophobic, and the others are not much better. At one point, Mr. Pink outright states that black and white women "ain't the same" and relies on stereotypes to justify this. The film even draws attention to this at times, with details such as Mr. White's anecdote about working with "Alabama" (who according to him is an exceptional thief), not to mention that the woman confronted by Mr. White and Mr. Orange actually makes an effort to defend herself (and ends up shooting the latter). 

It is likely that Joe, being a closed-minded old man, simply would not hire a woman. This would be consistent with much of the rest of the film, which highlights flaws in the criminal lifestyle. Joe is not exactly an effective planner. He is stubborn and refuses to accept any way other than his own (as is shown when he refuses to refer to Mr. Pink as anything other than his assigned nickname). This was after all the same guy who considered a complete psycho to be a good addition to the team, and the other guys involved do not exactly fit together.

This is established in the film's opening scene, where the thieves are eating breakfast and talking. This particular moment establishes each of the central characters through their dialogue. This particular scene marks the only appearance of Mr. Blue, and is one of only two scenes (not including the credits) to show Mr. Brown. Neither of these two are given a huge amount of focus. Mr. Blue only speaks two lines in the entire scene, while Mr. Brown is given a supporting role in the conversation. Both of these men die during the heist, so by reducing their role, Tarantino is singling out the four who will be given the most focus: Mr. White, Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, and Mr. Blonde.

During this scene, Joe remains distracted from the other guys. While most of them engage in a discussion about the sexual themes of pop music, Joe spends the entire time going through an old address book he apparently found. He seems to be more concerned with remembering the names he finds in the aforementioned book than the heist he is supposed to overseeing later. Mr. White, is quick to recognize this and takes the book. Mr. White is starting to show a sense of responsibility, as he feels the group is disorganized. He even comments on how he feels he is hearing two separate conversations, foreshadowing the inevitable incompatibility of the group. Joe simply responds by stubbornly asking for his book to be returned. This exchange alone is setting up aspects of both characters: Joe's stubbornness and the responsibility Mr. White claims trying to keep everyone organized and looking after Mr. Orange.

Mr. Orange remains very quiet during this scene. This makes sense, foreshadowing his role as the undercover cop, or the odd man out. When Mr. White takes Joe's book, Mr. Blonde jokingly offers to shoot the former. Not only does this foreshadow Blonde's role as a psychopath, but the fact that he directly asks Joe also alludes to the close relationship between them that is later revealed. Mr. Pink then refuses to contribute to the waitress's tip, an act which angers the other guys. When Mr. Pink explains it, there is a cold logic to his reasoning. He makes a perfectly valid point when he comments on how society expects some people to get tips and others not to. This sets up his attitude after the heist, when he is the first person to figure out that one of his partners was a cop and tries to figure out logically who it was.

This scene also establishes an interesting motif that recurs throughout the film, especially in the scenes set prior to the heist. This group of people is acting very casual. They are discussing popular music for much of it, not to mention everybody gets mad at Mr. Pink for refusing to tip the waitress. It would appear less like a robbery and more like a group of office workers going to lunch. Crime is treated as a workplace. The suits worn by the thieves even look like something they would wear to an office.

Two of the flashback sequences, those of Mr. White and Mr. Blonde, both play out very much like job interviews, with them each being seated in Joe's office and questioned about their most recent experiences. Mr. Orange even mentions getting a "reference" to convince Joe that he was a good thief. The planning sequence that is shown is basically organized as a seminar. Joe stands at the front of the room dressed in a business suit and displays charts illustrating his business plan. All these details go to emphasize one simple idea: that while these guys might not be the most pleasant of individuals, in the end they are all just doing their job.

Still, there is that final idea that crime doesn't pay. Everything comes down on top of the main characters in the end. Ultimately, their undoing is that the thieves are incompatible and unable to work together. They are all interested only in their own ends. Mr. White is too concerned about Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink is too determined to find the undercover cop, and Mr. Blonde's psychotic tendencies not only endanger his partners during the heist, but also causes distrust from Mr. White. All of the men are wrapped in their own perspectives so much that when Joe finally does show up, the thieves end up shooting each other before the cops can get to them.

It is fitting that Mr. Pink is the one person to avoid getting shot, being the one person rational enough to stay out of the Mexican Stand-off. He then makes the seemingly logical choice of taking the diamonds (which he might still be able to make money off of and thus get something out of all this), though he is presumably caught when the police show up moments later. The only other possible survivors are Mr. Orange and Mr. White, both of whom are badly injured (the film ends with a final gunshot, though it is hard to tell precisely who fired it and where). Mr. White is then faced with the ironic reveal that the man he has tried to protect and comfort the whole time was in fact the undercover cop.

In the final moments, a group of police officers break into the warehouse offscreen. Only their voices are heard, so it is unclear how many are present. The voices heard are all male, though given how many cops were implied to be involved in this operation, it is not unlikely that there are female officers present outside. What makes this scene curious is the ambiguity of the ending. Tarantino could have shown the cops entering, but instead he focuses purely on Mr. White's face and his reaction. There is final gunshot, but the audience is left to question where it came from and who was hit. Mr. White is seen collapsing, but this could be just from his injuries.

Once again, this ties into the simple idea that Tarantino is not interested in the heist itself. In another filmmaker's hands, the central plot of Reservoir Dogs would only make up the final act of the film, after the heist has been shown. There would be a shot of a group of cops entering the building and surrounding Mr. White (or possibly shooting him when he refuses to put down his gun, but it would be a lot more obvious). This would make sense; one normally watches a conventional heist film with an interest in seeing how the heist is pulled off, but Reservoir Dogs is not a conventional heist movie.

Tarantino is not so much interested in the heist itself as he is in the people involved. It is a character study, an attempt to get into the minds of the criminals. The actual crime is irrelevant. Tarantino could have said anything about what the protagonists were trying to do. The diamonds have almost nothing to do with the overall story. It is all about how the main characters play off of each other, and the mounting tensions that ultimately lead to their undoing. This is why Reservoir Dogs stands out among crime films.

Blindspot: Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2 (2003 and 2004)

Okay, this is a little bit of an embarrassment. My love for strong female characters and my numerous articles encouraging better depictions of women in film are practically the stuff of legend around the blogging community, second perhaps only to my equally-notorious hatred for the films of Jean-Luc Godard. I've written a multitude of articles about how women are represented in film, and a large number of my reviews make a point of highlighting strong female characters or female characters that I find don't live up to standard. I have also made clear my love for action movies, and in particular action heroines.

Everybody else talked about how great a movie Snowpiercer was, I was the only one with the nerve to admit that I had some concerns about its general lack of female characters; and that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's not even getting into my more controversial criticisms of Ghostbusters and Sean Connery's Bond films in the ways they treat their female characters, or the fact that I seem to have some sort of quota in place when it comes to television programming, also for strong female leads. I've even had to deal with a mountain of angry IMDB users because I criticized the movies Black Sea and Alien Outpost for choosing to have an all-male cast when there was no reason it was necessary.

How is it, then, that it took me this long to see the popular two-part film featuring one of the most iconic action heroines in cinematic history? The Bride ranks as one of the biggest names among action girls, right up there with Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, Lara Croft, Xena, and Black Widow; and yet somehow I had failed to see Kill Bill before now. I should be ashamed of myself. It therefore made a perfect choice for my 2015 Blindspot List. Even more fitting is that I am doing this one now, seeing as I actually share my birthday (March 27) with Quentin Tarantino.

Uma Thurman stars as (*censored*), a former assassin who was also the victim of a massacre at her wedding, of which she was the only survivor. Four years later, this woman, known only as "The Bride" wakes up from a coma and, after dealing with a perverted orderly named Buck (Michael Bowen), begins planning her revenge against the people responsible for the massacre, led by a mysterious man simply known as "Bill". Tarantino's trademarks are all over this one, with the story being presented in anything but chronological order (similar to Pulp Fiction) and the frequent use of blood as a spectacle.

There is a lot I can see influenced Tarantino in the production of Kill Bill. The most obvious influence is the old Japanese samurai films such as those of Akira Kurosawa, but there are also elements of the martial arts film. More specifically, it appears to draw on the Wuxia style (also commonly nicknamed "Wi-Fu"), where the fight scenes are stylized and presented more as a dance, as is especially evident in the Bride's confrontation with Lucy Liu. There is also definitely a bit of the western mixed in for good measure, complete with desert landscapes and a cowboy character in the form of Michael Madsen as Budd.

This blending of different genres is also reflected in the various soundtracks employed by Tarantino, composed by RZA. Throughout the film, we get several pieces of music that fit a variety of different genres which normally would not be seen together. This includes tracks that sound like they would belong in a 70's blacksploitation movie, ones that should be in a martial arts film, and ones that actually sound like something Ennio Morricone would have composed for a Sergio Leone western (though Tarantino also uses the actual theme from A Fistful of Dollars in one scene). These changes in soundtrack create very different tones, fitting to the different environments encountered over the course of both installments.

Even the Bride herself has some elements of several prior action heroines before her. While she may be played by a Caucasian actress, her character arc is in some ways reminiscent of the heroines featured in 70's blacksploitation movies (to which Tarantino paid homage directly in his previous film, Jackie Brown), such as Foxy Brown. Much like the Bride, Foxy Brown (and many other heroines of blacksploitation cinema) is a woman who single-handedly takes on an entire gang in revenge for the murder of her boyfriend.

There is definitely a bit of Sarah Connor in there as well, particularly her Terminator 2 incarnation. Though the Bride does not show off her muscles as prominently (at least not in Volume 1), she does display a similar sense of determination. By Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Sarah develops into something closer to a hardbodied heroine than the reluctant heroine we met in The Terminator. Part of what makes Sarah so admirable as a character is her persistence. While the films don't hide the pain of her wounds, she is still able to keep getting up and fighting.

The Bride has something similar, where she keeps on going even when it is obvious that she is in excruciating agony (as one can expect from getting slashed multiple times and bashed in the head by a spiked ball on a chain). She is tough but she has those odd moments that allow us to see that she is still human. She has emotions and weaknesses just like everyone else (she doe seem genuinely scared when Budd tries to bury her alive). Her maternal instincts displayed in Vol. 2 also call to mind Sarah Connor as well as Ellen Ripley in Aliens.

This kind of character also has its roots in the "wise-guy" hero, popularized by John McClane in Die Hard, to which the Bride also has some similarities. Though perhaps not as much as McClane, the Bride does go through moments in which she acts as though she isn't taking her situation entirely seriously (i.e. casually agreeing to have coffee with someone she intends to kill) which add a bit of comedic tension once in a while. All of these create an interesting experience to be sure, but then there is the rest of the cast.

If there is one thing Kill Bill can't be accused of being short on, it's strong female characters. In addition to the Bride herself, both films produce an interesting selection of equally tough female antagonists. In fact the women in Kill Bill arguably bring out the most interesting fight scenes while the few male villains are mostly dispatched quickly. In Vol. 1 we have a brief but... interesting confrontation with Vivia A. Fox as Vernita Green (which is disrupted by her daughter arriving from school, forcing her and the Bride to hide the fact that they were just trying to kill each other a moment ago), but the real treat is when the Bride starts going after O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and her assortment of eccentric characters.

O-Ren herself is quite a remarkable character. Not only is she talented with a sword, but she is also smart (she manages to take command of several Japanese crime syndicates) and still has a strange sense of nobility to her work. It's also not hard to fall in love with her personal bodyguard, Gogo (), a psychotic schoolgirl who likes to fling around a spiked ball on a chain in a disturbingly playful fashion. Also on board is her lawyer, Sophie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), who is competent and tough in her own right, at least until she has her arm sliced clean off. Even the so-called "Crazy 88" (apparently there aren't actually 88 of them, the name just sounded cool) is of mixed gender if you look closely. In Vol. 2 we get another female villain, Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), a one-eyed assassin who doesn't take crap from anyone male or female.

I've seen some great films come from Tarantino, and even the ones I didn't like (Inglorious Basterds) generally had something redeeming about them. This one continues show Tarantino's brilliance, as he never fails to amaze the viewer with a variety of crazy action scenes, characters, situations, and environments making every piece of the film seem a unique experience. The nonlinear structure also adds a strange sort of charm to the film, if in a disorienting kind of way similar to Pulp Fiction. I think there is a very good reason the Bride is often ranked as one of the greatest action heroines, because she is. She's right up there with Sarah Connor and Ellen Ripley in terms of her competence and emotional depth. How have I not already seen this one?

We're Goin' to be Doin' One Thing and One Thing Only: Criticizing a Movie

I remember when Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds first came out in theaters. It was a huge hit, everybody seemed to be talking about it. I myself did not know of it until I started seeing commercials on TV, ones that made it look like some sort of weird comedy. It wasn't even until I did some further research months later that I even realized it was supposed to be set in World War II. At the same time this was my first real exposure to Quentin Tarantino as a director, and at the time I was not entirely sure about his reputation for violence. Over time he has come to win me over with several great movies like Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Django Unchained.

Still, I felt unsure if I would ever be able to get into Tarantino's work after the first movie of his I actually watched in full. That was Inglorious Basterds. I was in High School at the time, in grade 11 when my teacher was running a film class for the first time. I was trying to work on my independent study unit and needed some footage from one of the movies we watched, so my teacher let me get it off his hard drive. He also told me he had a bunch of other movies on there and I could take any of them if I wanted. I got a whole bunch off of that thing (this was back before I started to develop ethics regarding ownership of pirated movies), and one of the first ones I saw was Inglorious Basterds.

This was a movie everybody was talking about when it came out. My classmates were quoting it, referencing it, and it seems in general to have a surprisingly huge fanbase for a standalone movie. Naturally, when I obtained it as a file from my teacher's hard drive I decided to give it a watch to see what all the hype was about. Sadly, I'm not so sure it lived up to that hype. I've voiced my opinions on this movie before to quite a number of people, most of whom react with complete astonishment and act like there's something wrong with me when I tell them I didn't like it. I remember even in film class afterwards talking about seeing Pulp Fiction and hoping that it would "redeem" Tarantino.

With hindsight, Inglorious Basterds did have a lot of Tarantino's trademarks, and from a purely technical standpoint it is actually a very well-done movie. The camera work is all very good, as is the cinematography and the acting. It does take talent to make a movie in three different languages, especially when your own native language is the one that is used the least. That is not an easy stunt to pull off. Very few American directors even have the nerve to attempt to make a movie in a language other than their own, so there is something to be admired in that area. The problems mostly come from the story and the general themes of the movie, many of which seem to conflict with each other.

There seem to be two different ways of looking at Inglorious Basterds, and I've heard people use both interpretations when describing how much they liked it. The first is that it is some sort of dark comedy about Americans going in to take revenge on the Nazis. To be fair, the Nazis were horrible genocidal maniacs so I can see why many people would enjoy a movie centered around a group of Allied Soldiers going into Germany to induce payback. Unfortunately, that explanation comes into question when one considers the second interpretation: that it is really a drama about how war is not black and white and even the supposed "good guys" are capable of committing war crimes.

This is precisely where the trouble begins to set in. Inglorious Basterds is literally trying to be two completely different movies at the same time, neither of which go together. If it's a comedy in which we're supposed to be entertained by watching the deaths of Nazis, that's fine. Unfortunately it defeats the purpose when you then turn around and try to make it clear that nearly every German soldier encountered is a civilian who doesn't have any particular ties to Nazism. It's hard to enjoy that one man being clubbed with a baseball bat when you've just gone out of your way to make us sympathize with him. Same goes for that scene in the bar where the soldiers are just a group of civilians playing a game to celebrate the birth of one man's son.

On the other hand, perhaps it's the reverse. Maybe the whole point is to show that the Americans weren't always the "good guys" and that they could do horrible things as well, as indeed they historically did (the propaganda films of the time usually left out what the American and Canadian governments were doing to Japanese immigrants during the war). That would explain the efforts to authenticate everything, right down to having the majority of the film be spoken in French or German (as opposed to simply having the Nazis speak in thin German accents, like on Hogan's Heroes). That version of the film also seems to make sense until you consider the campier moments, like the fact that this movie includes a scene where Hitler is shot dead in an over-the-top fashion by the titular basterds, again defeating the purpose.

If your intention was to create a realistic war film that emphasized a message about how World War II was not as black and white as people often assume (which is true, we did after all have an even worse genocidal maniac on our side: Joseph Stalin), why do you end it like that? Trying to authenticate everything and then changing what historically happened makes all the effort seem redundant. It's like making a movie about the Titanic, going out of your way to make sure every single actor is speaking in an authentic accent for their respective background, and then having it end with the ship swerving around the ice berg and arriving safely in New York. Why did you even bother to go that extra step if you were just going to mess it all up?

So which one is it? Is it a comedy about killing Nazis or a serious war film about how the Allied forces weren't always the "good guys". These two ideas don't go together. Had Inglorious Basterds stuck to one or the other, it might have worked. As a comedy it could have been a fun little action movie that perhaps culminates in Hitler being killed in an over-the-top fashion, sort of an American fantasy of how World War II should have ended. As a drama, it could have been an emotional experience that seriously forces the viewer to question their perspective on World War II. When put together, both approaches defeat the purpose of each other.

Also, to add to all that, Michael Fassbender's role in the movie was completely pointless. Why would you go through all the trouble of introducing this character of Lt. Hickox just so you can kill him off in the very next scene? His only contribution to the story is accidentally being responsible for a shootout because he accidentally exposed himself as an Englishman. Any of the other characters that had already been established could have done the same. This guy had no purpose for being in the film at all. Why is he even there?

In the end, Inglorious Basterds is not a very good movie. On a purely technical level, yes, it is impressive. Once you actually look at the content of the film itself, it becomes a mess. It tries to be combine two mutually exclusive ideas that really should not be blended together. Tarantino has made some great movies, some of which do address darker periods in history. Django Unchained was a western that addressed a period of history when slavery was perfectly legal, and that one also ended with the main character taking out a plantation. It didn't try to make you sympathize with the slave owner, so you could root for Django the whole way through. Inglorious Basterds on the other hand, doesn't really work in the same way. I know people think I'm crazy for saying this, but it's really not that good a movie.

Character Profile: Mr. Blonde

He's the dark-haired guy in the middle.

Reservoir Dogs is a very interesting film. It's a very non-conventional story (only a man like Tarantino would try to make a heist movie without actually showing the heist). The cast is made up primarily of a bunch of guys who have very few redeeming qualities. Let's face it, all but one are crooks (and even he ended up shooting a civilian) who spend most of the film yelling at each other, not to mention they utter a lot of offensive language including a few racist remarks. The weird part is it somehow still manages to be extraordinarily compelling in its simplicity.

The main cast of course consists of a bunch of men who, with the exception of Nice Guy Eddie and Joe, are dressed similarly (making them harder to identify) and identified by color-coded names: Mr. White, Mr. Orange, Mr. Blue, Mr. Brown, Mr. Pink, and Mr. Blonde. All of them are nasty characters. Mr. White seems slightly better by comparison but even he does a few less than pleasant things. 

Mr. Pink does a lot of horrible things: we first see him refusing to tip a waitress in spite of pressure from his colleagues and only relenting when Joe points out he paid for his breakfast. Later on we see him firing at cops giving chase and dragging an innocent woman out of her car so that he can get away, showing little concern over one of his partners being severely wounded, and trying to make off with the diamonds on his own after everybody else ends up in a Mexican stand-off. The funny thing is in the long run he doesn't seem so bad.

As bad as the others get ("Nice Guy Eddie" shoots a cop in cold blood, as if they weren't already in enough trouble), they seem like really nice guys once Mr. Blonde (who isn't actually blonde) steps onto the scene. From his first appearance in the film's opening scene when he jokes about shooting Mr. White to his arrival at the warehouse we know something's not quite right about this guy. 

Mr. White is freaked out by him and even Mr. Pink mentions that he came close to shooting him (there is talk about how he went on an unnecessarily violent killing spree during the heist of which White was almost a casualty). While Mr. Blonde's joking about shooting one of his own partners and Mr. White's testimony certainly help to set things up, we really get to see his true colors when he arrives at the warehouse. The others are shocked and confused. Mr. White arrives desperately trying to comfort a critically wounded Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink bursts into the warehouse mid-tantrum. 

Mr. Blonde, however, steps in very cool and casual.  He doesn't seem to fully understand the gravity of the situation, having apparently taken the time to stop at a fast food joint to get a soda and some fries whereas everyone else has been desperately rushing to their meeting point. We see him just casually leaning against the pole, sipping at his drink and teasing his partners. This is certainly a sharp contrast to the two men present who are obviously a bit more worried about the fact that the heist was a disaster, they don't know how many people got out alive, and the cops could be closing in any time.

Then of course we get to the infamous torture scene, the scene so horrifying Michael Madsen had a lot of trouble going through with it, and even broke down on set after Kirk Baltz, who played the cop he tortures, ad-libbed a line about his character having a wife and kids. Blonde of course proceeds to duct tape the guy's mouth shut and violently cut off his ear with a razor blade (incidentally, I do wonder if Tarantino took some inspiration from Blue Velvet when writing this scene). He then goes on to douse the poor guy in gasoline (which is already painful enough) and very nearly sets him on fire. 

The thing is that before he does this, he looks the cop in the eye and honestly says that he's just torturing him for fun. He doesn't care what information the poor guy will give, he's going to hurt him anyway. Worse still is just how casual he is about the whole thing, putting on some of his favorite music and dancing around. 

The guy is a psycho, plain and simple, although White and Pink are the only ones to recognize that. We even see a bit of this in his flashback, when he talks to Joe and "Nice Guy Eddy" after getting out of jail. He has a chance to go clean and get a job, but he loves his criminal work too much to even consider that possibility. 

Whatever happened to make him this way there's no turning back, and the only way his story could end was with his own death, which is precisely what happened at the hands of Mr. Orange. Sadly, Blonde does manage to get a partial victory against Orange in that he had earned enough trust from Joe and Eddy that there was no way they would believe Orange's story that he planned to betray them.