10 Movie Characters They Wanted You To Forget
2. Mr. Orange - Reservoir Dogs
Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) spends the vast majority of Reservoir Dogs laying mortally wounded on the floor at the criminal gang's warehouse, having been shot during the aftermath of the diamond heist.
Though Orange is always present throughout the film, and flashbacks nicely fill in his backstory as an undercover cop, it's often easy to forget that he's actually hanging around in the periphery.
This pays off quite spectacularly half-way through the movie, when Tarantino focuses on Mr. White (Michael Madsen) torturing and preparing to kill a kidnapped cop, Marvin Nash (Kirk Baltz).
The theatrical horror of Mr. Blonde cutting Nash's ear off makes it easy to forget that Mr. Orange is just a few feet away - albeit badly injured - such that when Orange interrupts the torture and shoots Blonde dead, it comes as a genuine surprise.
Tarantino himself even commented on this trick in a 1994 interview with Film Comment:
"One of the things about Reservoir Dogs that really came off was how after a certain point you just forgot Orange was in the room. You can see him, he's there, but his presence becomes this lump. It wasn't like we even cheated by framing him out constantly so you get the illusion of being alone - Blonde actually goes over to him and still he doesn't make the impression. So when Orange shoots him it's a real jolt."