A Drama from the Murdermeister

Rating: 9/10 (26 January 2008)

I didn't know that this was a Tarantino movie when I watched it. One evening it was screened on television and I just went along for the ride. But pretty soon I found it was taking me to lots of interesting places, all of them with the same name - Character.
Each of these characters have problems with which we can empathise. There's a crook with a Walter Mitty complex, and another crook who's burned-out and clearly losing it. There's a bored blonde moll with too much spare time who has taken to drugs as a fillip. There's a bail-bonds-man just getting along and getting older, doing his job without much thought to anything else. And then there's Jackie Brown: an air-hostess metaphorically on her last flight. She's 44, middle-aged, and putting on weight. She's also an unintentional mule for Walter Mitty and, consequently, a stooge for the police.
This movie weaves an engaging little fabric of trust and deceit, hope and disappointment, success and failure. Even at their worst, there is something about each character that commends them to your affections. They're just getting by on the term that life has made for them.
There is murder. And it's as sudden, needless and brutal enough to bear the Tarantino stamp. But in the end it doesn't detract from the character study that is the basic premise of this movie. Those who die were clearly doomed anyway. You knew that. Whilst those who survive are enriched by their passing, literally and metaphorically.
I needn't name the players; they're all listed elsewhere. But each one does a thoroughly sterling job in their role. And if ever proof were wanting that we need more older women on screen - here it is.
This movie is a worthy distraction from Tarentino's usual formula of graphic crudity and violence. It signal's an ability to do a great deal more with people than the things for which he is so rightly famous. The man possesses subtlety. And I, for one, would welcome more.