Entertaining and exciting thriller that keeps you hooked during its 160 minutes

Rating: 8/10 (10 May 2020)

Tarantino once said that Jackie Brown was a film that was most enjoyed the second or third time you saw it and I must admit that I agree now. This is an entertaining and exciting thriller that achieves the goal of keeping you hooked during its 160 minutes, with an intelligent and very well executed screenplay.
The film managed to hook my attention from start to finish, but in order to follow the tangled story without being confused I had leave unnoticed a few details that I only got the second time I saw it. These types of films in which the viewer can overlook certain important details, and that require subsequent scenes of explanation, in my opinion, remove subtlety from the story. However, although I did not feel this with Jackie Brown, since Tarantino knew how to provide the amount of information necessary to keep us informed and intrigued at the same time, the way certain information and some facts were revealed to us did not completely convince me.
Leaving aside the treatment of some transitions between scenes, which I think could have worked better, technically the feature film is quite solid. I loved the use of the colors yellow, red and blue in the photography and the costume desing, as well as the choice of music, since I feel that they complied with giving personality and a very particular tone to the film. Likewise, despite not having read the novel, the adaptation seemed great to me. The way Tarantino decides to develop the story and the way in which the motivations of the characters make sense, result in natural and slightly forced acts. The scenes that serve to explain what is happening, as I mentioned lines above, could have been better narrated, but this does not remove suspense or emotion from the plot.Likewise, the direction was well executed with interesting panning camera movements that take you from one character to another, and recurring closed shots that fulfill concentrating our attention on the actors and their dialogues. Except for a couple of scenes involving Ordell and Beaumont (Chris Tucker) and which I consider to be very well accomplished, the overall direction is not outstanding.
Another element of the film worth mentioning is the acting. Pam Grier, the protagonist, gives an excellent performance that allowed her to participate in important awards that season. It's worth mentioning that this character was intended exclusively for her after Quentin Tarantino was impressed with her talent on a previous audition. In the same way, we have a Samuel L. Jackson showing one of the best performances I've seen of him so far. Jackson manages to blend perfectly with his character and dialogues, taking him from being a fun and friendly subject to a true and desperate psychopath. Although for me it is he who should have had an Oscar nomination for his performance in this film, it was Robert Foster who ended up obtaining it with his excellent work playing Max. Recall that at that time Robert Foster was going through a career decline so he accepted, without hesitation, when Tarantino specifically sought him out for this role. Finally, the film shows us some solid Robert De Niro, Michael Keaton and Bridget Fonda who I think did a great job in the scenes where they worked.
Finally, Tarantino confessed that he feared that Elmore Leonard, the writer of the novel, would hate the film, but the author ended up later revealing to him that it was possibly one of the best scripts he had read. I don't know if that's the case for me, but Jackie Brown is definitely a film that, although not perfect, is very well written, has an entertaining and compelling story, and is excellently performed. Whether you are a Tarantino fan or not, it is a movie that I definitely recommend watching.