Review of Jackie Brown (1997) by Brian R — 07 Nov 2012

Quentin Tarantino is just one hell of a filmmaker. His third picture "Jackie Brown" based on the Elmore Leonard novel "Rum Punch" is also an homage to the blaxploitation pictures of the 1970's and with a solid cast I don't see how a picture like this goes wrong.

Samuel L. Jackson's plays the ruthless character Ordell Robbie a gun runner under the close watch of the ATF. His performance is flawless and scary reminding me of other actors playing ruthless street smarts roles such as Pesci or Day-Lewis. Pam Grier as the flight attendant suave Jackie Brown who has just enough street smarts to pull off the whool over one's eye. Robert Forster, Michael Keaton, Michael Bowen, and Bridget Fonda have nothing but crafty street intelligence. Except maybe Louis Gara(Robert DeNiro) as the quiet loopy friend of Robbie.

Tarantino makes this picture unique and different from most Hollywood crime thrillers. My fav scenes is when Jackie Brown is having a discussion with Max Cherry that involves working for a lousy airline company and the risk of having to start life all over, when Robbie talks Beaumont Livingston into doing a small favour which ends up in cold blood, when Robbie figures out that Jackie Borwn took the rest of his money then slwoly takes out his violence on Gara, and on and on. Tarantino has a knack for this kind of material especially the dialogue and the long camera takes to further enhance his scenes, furthermore Tarantino has a great ear for music and uses a vast selection of soul music that reminded me of the ones used previous blaxploitation pictures.