Jackie Brown (1997)
★★½ — Jackie Brown (1997)
Jackie Brown arrived in December 1997 as one of the most anticipated follow-ups in recent Hollywood memory. After Pulp Fiction had turned Quentin Tarantino into something close to a cultural phenomenon, the pressure on his third feature was considerable. Rather than doubling down on the hyperactive violence of his earlier work, Tarantino made a deliberate turn toward something slower and more grounded, basing the film on Elmore Leonard's 1992 novel Rum Punch and relocating its story from Florida to the sun-bleached shopping malls and apartment complexes of Los Angeles. It is a film that wears its affection for 1970s blaxploitation cinema openly, and the casting of Pam Grier in the lead role was as much an act of homage as it was a straightforward piece of film-making. The result sits a little apart from the rest of Tarantino's catalogue, quieter and more character-led, clocking in at a substantial 154 minutes.
Produced through Tarantino's own A Band Apart banner alongside Miramax, the film centres on a flight attendant caught between the law and her employer, a small-time arms dealer, after she is found smuggling cash across the border. Her only way out is to play both sides against each other, with a little help from a bail bondsman who may or may not be entirely trustworthy. The supporting cast around Grier is formidable: Samuel L. Jackson, who had already become a fixture in Tarantino's work, plays the menacing gunrunner Ordell Robbie; Robert De Niro takes a notably low-key turn as Ordell's recently released associate; and Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton round out an ensemble that, on paper at least, is about as well stocked as anything from that era. For fans of Tarantino's other work from this period, it is worth comparing the film's energy and structure to what he was doing in Reservoir Dogs, his feature debut, or to the more frenetic mode he would return to in later years with films like The Hateful Eight and Death Proof.
Tarantino has always been a director who treats his soundtracks as a second script, and Jackie Brown is no exception. The film leans heavily on soul and R&B from the 1970s, using its music to establish mood and period in a way that feels organic rather than showy. Whether all of that care and craft translates into a film that fully satisfies is, of course, the real question, and it is one the critical reception of the time never quite settled. It was praised, broadly, but never with the same fervour as its predecessors, and it has remained something of a curio in discussions of Tarantino's output ever since.
2nd worst Tarantino film. Look, I love Tarantino. The man could make a two-hour film about people arguing over sandwich toppings, and it’d probably still be entertaining. But Jackie Brown? It’s just... fine. The cast is stacked, Pam Grier is a good choice of lead here and she carries the film well. The soundtrack is chef’s kiss (as you'd expect from Tarantino) but the pacing drags. This isn’t the witty, razor-sharp Tarantino of Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill. It’s a slow burn, and at times, it’s just too slow. There are great moments sprinkled throughout, but they never quite come together into something amazing. Maybe I just wanted more style, more energy, more Tarantino. Not bad, just not memorable.
I keep coming back to that pacing question every time Jackie Brown comes up in conversation. A long runtime is no obstacle when a film earns every minute, as something like Little Caesar proves in its own very different way, but here the length starts to feel like a choice made out of affection rather than necessity. Tarantino clearly loves these characters and this world, and there is something almost touching about that. It just does not always translate into a film that holds your full attention across the whole stretch. A good cast, a great soundtrack, and flashes of real craft throughout, but perhaps the one film in his catalogue where you find yourself wondering what he might have done with a tighter edit. Fine is not a dirty word, but from this director, it stings just a little.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1997 | Watched: 2005-03-03
Trailer
▶ Watch the official trailer for Jackie Brown (1997) on YouTube
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Quentin Tarantino: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) · Inglourious Basterds (2009) · Pulp Fiction (1994) · Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
More from the 1990s: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · Blue (1993) · Cemetery Man (1994)
More crime: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Angst (1983) · Stolen Face (1952) · Cairo Station (1958)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
