Jared's Pick - Movie Reviews: Jackie Brown

Jackie Brown

Tarantino fans, take note: this is not another Pulp Fiction. Gone are the vibrant scenes and gratuitous violence and bizarre characters that made his breakthrough movie so much fun. Instead, Tarantino proves with Jackie Brown that his success was no fluke, and tackles a (relatively) straightforward crime story with a sharp eye for detail and some A-1 directing.

At two hours and 48 minutes, Jackie Brown may sound a bit long, but it's a testament to Tarantino's talent that the movie never once lags. It's a perfectly paced story that reveals itself one piece at a time, peeling back layers of deception and triple-crosses until the viewer is never quite sure who's playing who.

Jackie Brown is a middle-aged flight attendant who is smuggling money across the border to Ordell, a gun dealer in Compton. When she is apprehended by the ATF, she is prepared to use every trick available to her to stay out of prison and avoid being killed. In a complex turn of events that would be unfair to disclose, she starts to work the ATF agents, Ordell, and some accomplices of her own against each other, with no one (including the audience) ever quite hearing the full truth.

It wouldn't be Tarantino without some memorable dialogue and oddball scenes, and while they're not as in-your-face as Pulp Fiction, the understated wit still shines. Ordell tempts a man into a car with the promise of waffles and chicken; two of Ordell's associates ponder a photograph in a perfectly acted, hilariously true-to-life scene; Jackie and a bailbondsman discuss the pains of aging in her kitchen while listening to the Delfonics. These random scenes don't move the plot, they flesh out the characters and bring them wonderfully to life.

Another of Quentin's tricks appears at the end: a crucial scene is replayed three times from the perspective of three different characters, carefully unmasking the deception. It's a tense, wonderfully directed shot, but what you really notice are the characters.

The impeccable Samuel L. Jackson is terrific as Ordell, the suspicious gun dealer; Robert DeNiro gives an effective, surprisingly low-key performance as one of Ordell's dumb stoner thugs; Bridget Fonda's performance as Ordell's surfer girlfriend Melanie is glowing and yet hardly noticeable, it's so well done. Micheal Keaton is sympathetic and funny as the ATF agent out to bust Ordell, but special note goes to Robert Forster as Jackie's bailbondsman and mild love interest - this is a career making performance, warm and confident. Jackie herself is played by Pam Grier, who gives the character exactly the right blend of desperation and crackling intelligence.

This is a subtle, impressive movie that insinuates itself rather than exploding in your face. It combines an intelligent plot with pitch-perfect performances and steady directing - it is well worth seeing.

- Jared O'Connor

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