Quentin Tarantino knows movies. Being a self confessed movie geek though, that’s not surprising. From the gangster/heist movies that gave us “Reservoir Dogs” and “True Romance” and of course the mega “Pulp Fiction”, to the king fu movies that brought us the “Kill Bill” saga.
“Jackie Brown” comes from the influence that the blaxploitation era of American cinema and television had on Quentin’s own fascination with film. It also comes from an adaptation of the book “Rum Punch”.
We all know that Quentin loves to link his films together with references to both his own work and that of the people he has in the films. This is true here with Pam Grier playing the title role, while probably still fresh in Quentin’s and other’s minds as Foxy Brown from the 70′s. Pam Grier is also mentioned in “Reservoir Dogs” in a car scene where the gangsters try to remember the name of the chick who played Foxy Brown.
Sometimes I think Quentin’s brain is just one big film screenplay and we just get snippets for €9 a go in a cinema whenever he sees fit.
Anyway…
Released in 1997 with a cast that I’ll suspect came knocking on Tarantino’s door rather than the other way around, it should have been one of the films of the decade.
It wasn’t. For me anyway.
Samuel L Jackson, Robert De Niro, Pam Grier, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton - it reads like a hop scotch game lay out on Hollywood Boulevard.
Maybe it’s the fact that the material or story isn’t an original QT work of usual greatness or maybe it’s the lack of action. I dunno to be honest and even as I watch it now as a memory refresher I still can’t put my mind on why it always seems to be the forgotten Tarantino film.
The dialogue is snappy and typical. The performances by all are great as expected. The direction and editing all seem to be working towards a climax that just doesn’t seem to deliver.
The story centers around a flight attendant (Grier) who runs money for an arms dealer (Jackson) and when the police stop her at the airport they end up offering her a deal in return for leading Jackson to them. What ensues is a cat and mouse game that should have you on the edge of your seat and guessing who is playing for what side. What we get is a film that gives us what “Reservoir Dogs” or “Pulp Fiction” didn’t - the in betweens.
His prior two films only showed us the bits that mattered, the action, the snappy dialogue. This one gives us that but also gives us the other less exciting bits that get cut out when you usually jump around a films running order and time line. And maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what slows the whole thing down for me, the normal running order to tell a story that really could have taken half as long to tell.
If I’m totally honest this is one film that I would leave out when recommending Tarantino films to people who’d never seen one. It’s a great film, just not a great Tarantino film.
It has De Niro in one of his best performances in my opinion. Little screen time and even less to say, he spends nearly the entirety of his time on camera reacting to the rantings of Jackson’s Ordell. It still has a great 70′s soul, disco and funk soundtrack probably typical to what Pam Grier would have had supporting her performances back in the day too. It’s still got the great cast who obviously give some of their best and it’s still got Tarantino dialogue:
“AK-47, when you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherfucker in the room? Accept no substitutes”
And of course it continues the tradition of Samuel L Jackson with the words “Motherfucker” and “Repugnant shit”.
I’m just not that much of a Tarantino geek for that to be enough for me.
Is it just me?
Nope. Not just you. I could have written this post myself. I enjoyed the movie, but found it a bit forgettable. It didn’t leave the same impression on me as Pulp Fiction, Dogs, True Romance, Kill Bill, etc.
I don’t what what was missing, but something was.