Jackie Brown Movie Trailer. Having rested extensively on his laurels, Quentin Tarantino returns to feature-film directing after ”Pulp Fiction” with what might as well be two new crime tales, both called ”Jackie Brown.” The better of these, halfway visible, is a quick and lean adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s ”Rum Punch” replete with pop asides, shrewd maneuvering and all the casually hip hallmarks of the Tarantino style. But you’ll have to look hard to find it within the slower, talkier, more sluggish ”Jackie Brown” that actually appears on screen.
Running nearly as long as ”Pulp Fiction” even though its ambitions are more familiar and small, ”Jackie Brown” has the makings of another, chattier ”Get Shorty” with an added homage to Pam Grier, the Annie Oakley of 1970’s blaxploitation. That could well have been enough, since Mr. Tarantino shows such obvious affection for his leading lady and for the cheerful, greedy lowlife in Mr. Leonard’s stories.
But for all its enthusiasm, this film isn’t sharp enough to afford all the time it wastes on small talk, long drives, trips to the mall and favorite songs played on car radios. And although Ms. Grier makes an enjoyable comeback, she isn’t an actress well served by quiet stretches of doing nothing before the camera.
Ms. Grier plays the title role of a flight attendant caught in a trap between Federal authorities (with Michael Keaton as an overconfident Government agent) and a colossally wily gun dealer named Ordell Robbie. Among the best news about the film is that Samuel L. Jackson’s role is even splashier than the one he had in ”Pulp Fiction” and that his performance is even more of a treat. The film more than justifies its long, happy stretches of simply watching Ordell work his scams on the unsuspecting, whose number most certainly does not include Max Cherry.
Max (played by Robert Forster, a wonderfully strong presence here) is a bail bondsman who will eventually develop a soft spot for Jackie, which manifests itself as a taste for old Delfonics songs. But on the job, completely unruffled, Max gives the appearance of having seen everything, even an operator as cold-blooded as Ordell.
Ordell, whose look is priceless (slick ponytail, tiny needle-shaped goatee) even if his frequent racial references overwork the homeboy pretensions of Mr. Tarantino’s screenplay, begins the story with a clear confidence in his ability to outsmart everyone, Jackie included. Then Ordell begins realizing he may be overmatched.
Though the film waits an hour and a half to put Ms. Grier into a red dress and let her start strutting, she finally delivers the same kind of payoff for which she was once so famous, delivering the no-nonsense comeuppance to anyone who dares to annoy her. In one early scene, Mr. Tarantino has great directorial fun showing the audience how Jackie got hold of a gun and just how coolly she can brandish it.
The audience can thus root for Jackie to play off the film’s other characters against one another, and can speculate on the whereabouts of a bag full of money that is pivotal to the plot. But beyond that there isn’t anything special at stake in ”Jackie Brown,” and Mr. Tarantino allows the plotting to grow so knotty that it loses interest. The film is best (and most patiently) enjoyed as a set of laid-back sketches that don’t always head anywhere, even if a filmmaker of Mr. Tarantino’s talents can make schmoozing such an end in itself.
Bridget Fonda, as the laziest and most sullen of Ordell’s girlfriends, spends much of the film lounging woozily on a sofa, even though Ordell says this will rob her of ambition. ”Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV,” she replies.
Also contributing notably to the film’s ensemble loafing is Robert De Niro as a stumblebum ex-con who serves as Ordell’s henchman, even if he sometimes seems baffled by the boss’s business methods.
”Who’s that?” Mr. De Niro’s Louis Gara asks about a corpse in a car trunk.
”That’s Beaumont,” Ordell replies.
”Who’s Beaumont?” Louis wonders.
”A employee I had to let go,” Ordell explains.
There’s hardly a scene in ”Jackie Brown” that doesn’t, somewhere within the banal chatter, hide a tough little grace note like that.
”Jackie Brown” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes brief sexual situations, wall-to-wall stylized profanity and frequent streetwise use of the word ”nigger” describing both black and white characters.
Jackie Brown (1997)
Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Robert De Niro, LisaGay Hamilton, Aimee Graham, Michael Bowen
Screenplay by: Quentin Tarantino
Production Design by: David Wasco
Cinematography by: Guillermo Navarro
Film Editing by: Sally Menke
Costume Design by: Mary Claire Hannan
Set Decoration by: Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Art Direction by: Daniel Bradford
Music by:
MPAA Rating: R for strong language, some violence, drug use and sexuality.
Distributed by: Miramax Films
Release Date: December 25, 1997
Hits: 555
