Reservoir Dogs: Every Character & Performance Ranked

Perhaps the most intriguing character of the lot, Harvey Keitel fantastically portrays Mr. White, the experienced and one of the older criminals of the group, as well as being the one who seemingly takes Mr. Orange under his wing, or at the very least befriends him a great amount.

Mr. White gives a lot of benefits of the doubts throughout this film, except to Mr. Blonde who he sees as an uncontrollable psycho who almost got him killed. It creates a great dynamic between him and Mr. Pink as well as rising tensions when Blonde appears on the scene. He is incredibly, touchingly protective over Mr. Orange, shouting at Pink when he offers the proposal that Orange is the rat as well as sticking with him at the very end, even over Joe and Eddie.

That creates the massive layer of intrigue in White’s character. He is clearly experienced, and good at what he does, yet, he so confidently trusts and befriends newbie Mr. Orange that it's slightly confusing. It is not a detriment to the movie and is in fact a great addition to White’s character, as well as Keitel’s performance. It is just interesting to think about why he is so trusting.

In short, he's undoubtedly one of Tarantino’s best characters, with one of his best lines in “you shoot me in a dream you better wake up and apologise”.