Classy picture

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2015)

The movie Jackie Brown, adapted by Quentin Tarantino from the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch, is full of style and for me the best thing is that the actors and their characters all shine with intelligence. They might be doing dumb things, but at least in the case of characters such as flight attendant Jackie (Pam Grier) and police detective Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) they mull over their choices and try to do their best in life. As the wily small time gangsters, Robert De Niro and Samuel L. Jackson provide ample comic relief, and even Bridget Fonda, as the gangsters' floozy, plays her part with petulant flair. The opening scene has to be singled out here as one of the most fabulous I've seen -- in which a determinedly steely Jackie, who is smuggling drugs, walks the length of an airport hall in her air hostess uniform. Pam Grier is surely one of the most under-rated actresses in history, and here she finally gets to shine. She is so smart, sassy and glamorous it's frankly criminal she hasn't had the breaks in the industry she deserves. She definitely has the X-factor, and Tarantino shows her off in almost every scene. Robert Forster, playing Jackie's prospective romantic partner and bail bondsman Max Cherry, is similarly under-rated as an actor. As Jackie tries to get herself out of the double-crossing criminal entanglement that is the film's premise, Max is there, first as an objective justice professional but eventually as a true friend who has fallen in love with her. As Max, Forster beautifully conveys, just with his facial expressions, his affection for Jackie, and Tarantino picks up on this and lingers on Max watching Jackie. It's all the sweeter for the fact that these two people are 'older'- - it's not a conventional love story but it's funny and touching.