Review of Jackie Brown (1997) by Justin A — 07 Jan 2015

From the opening bars of Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" and the tracking shot of Pam Grier running late for work, there is something special about Jackie Brown that words cant quite sum up.

At its release, it was shrugged at, anything following up to Pulp Fiction had a huge gap to cross, but Jackie Brown is a different kind of animal, a kinetic, well shot and well acted underrated masterpiece.

Running as an air stewardess for one of the worst airlines in the world, Jackie, on face, works her day to day job, flying between LAX and Mexico, underneath however she is smuggling money for a gun selling criminal called Ordelle.

After getting caught coming off a flight from mexico with drugs and money on her, Ordelle turns to Bail bondsman Max Cherry to not only get her out of harms way but to ensure his lively hood. However Jackie, Max and the investigators, have other plans entirely for Ordelle.

First of all this ensemble just works, like most of Tarantino's outings, we have yet a fine array of actors at hand playing some truly mesmerising characters, Pam Grier plays the troubled Jackie Brown, Samuel Jackson does a subtley terrifying job of Ordell, Robert De Nero plays Lewis, Ordelle's friend and recently released from prison.

Robert Forster puts in an admirable performance as max cherry, playing everything close to his chest and letting his eyes do all the work. Michael Keaton, Tom Bowen, Bridget Fonda and Chris Tucker also come along for the ride, however their parts are particulary by the numbers.

This is truely the leads show and it pays off, we care about the characters, all of them, even Ordelle, which is so strange to like every character, no matter of their status in the film. The look and feel is expertly placed in modern times but harking back to blacksploitation, if the casting of Foxy Brown wasnt enough proof, the language, music and cinematic moments will be.

The soundtrack is a master stroke of genius, as mentioned earlier, Bobby Womack's Across 110th street is perfect to bookend the movie, but other gems like strawberry letter 23 and didnt I blow your mind this time, also resonate with the characters emotions and the feeling of the entire piece.

The cinematography is also stunning, with exceptionally long takes in places, tracking shots, slow pulls in for emotional effect, gorgeous jib shots that begin tight in and move into a scenario more isolated in the space of 30 seconds, the DOP really went to town on this one and it shows.

Tarantino's 3rd outing however does have some issues that it just cannot avoid. For 1, the dialogue, as engrossing and as well written as it is, you cannot help but hear Tarantino himself saying every single line, in every characters delivery, apart from Michael Keaton.

This shows through mostly with Jackson, I can understand that by this point Jackson was becoming a regular of his but it is still slightly jarring to hear. Another annoyance I had was the big "Job" shall we say at the end, it feels slightly dated by today's standards to watch the same event happen 3 times over but from a different angle, yes its fun to watch it all play out, but better preperation, some tight blocking and a confident piece of direction could have executed the entire scene as one sequence as shaved off a good 15 minutes without loosing any of the quality or tension.

It is without a doubt an underrated classic, although not hailed as high as Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown is still in my opinion his best movie and one that should be watched by as many people as possible.