Underrated Tarantino

Rating: 7/10 (3 June 2020)

Jackie Brown is often considered one of Tarantino's weaker projects. While I believe that this viewpoint does hold some truth, it still doesn't take away from the fact that it's still riddled with his charm, uniqueness, and genius.
Tarantino's usual strengths are here - engrossing, realistic dialogue, interesting presentation & cinematography, amazing score, and entertaining characters. It's these attributes that make sitting through Tarantino run times worth it.
However, for the first, and possibly only time in his career, Tarantino's own style works against him in Jackie Brown. The screenplay is an adaptation of the book "rum punch", which features a story that would benefit from Tarantino breaking away from his usual style at points. The two styles do actually go together pretty flawlessly in roughly the first hour of the film - the characters are all introduced in an entertaining and informative fashion, and they all seemed pretty distinct and memorable, partly due to the spot on acting by everyone involved (although mostly Samuel L Jackson & Robert De Niro). However, once Jackie begins to go rogue and scheme on pretty much everyone else in the film, the film began to lose me a little.
The "one woman against the world" plot presented in Jackie Brown would truly benefit from Tarantino really getting into Brown's head, but his laid back style doesn't quite allow for that, making many of Brown's decisions confuse me just as much as it confused her opponents in the story. As an audience, we can be surprised by our protagonist, but we shouldn't be confused. As a result, the story structure and direction left me questioning most of Jackie's decisions in the second and third act, making me feel detached from her, and her partner Max Cherry - when the film really would have benefitted from making us truly root for Jackie through getting a glimpse into her psyche, not just because she's the title character.
The film is also full of long shots. At best these make the film extremely interesting to watch unfold, but can sometimes leave the film with the feeling that it's meandering a little - the film, much like many other Tarantino films, could lose around 10 minutes.
Despite the slightly lackluster protagonist and meandering moments, Jackie Brown is still definitely another quality film in Tarantino's catalogue, filled to the brim with life and character, and a story that is undeniably interesting once all the pieces fall into place. 7/10.