An excellent, low-key character study with the usual Tarantino quirks

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2008)

Arguably director Quentin Tarantino's greatest film, and his third straight masterpiece in a row following the creative success of Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), with his firm grasp of character, narrative and dramatic involvement at something approaching a career best. Unlike the first two films aforementioned, Jackie Brown (1997) is something an obvious step-back from the hip dialog, cool violence and narrative experimentation of his more characteristic work; with a mostly straight story placing the emphasis on the dynamics of the central characters and the continual themes of middle-age hopelessness and the need for fulfilment; all of which seems fairly radical when looked at within the context of Tarantino's career as a whole, and in particular his two most recent films, Kill Bill (2003-2004) and Death Proof (2007). Unlike the more self-aware, post-modern self-reference of those particular films, Jackie Brown is an entirely low-key affair; built around an outstanding central performance from Pam Grier and an accomplished ensemble cast that compliments the character of Jackie - as well as the theme of people living off past glories - with Tarantino capturing the action with a restraint and intelligence that many of his detractors might conveniently choose to overlook.
As ever with Tarantino, the writing is intelligent enough to support both the mechanics of the plot and the reliance on character interaction, with a lot of the film simply being supported by the complicated relationships between the characters and the downtime that occurs during the more obvious moments of exposition; with the two strands coming together on a number of occasions to show these characters as fully-formed, complicated human beings trying to do right, when all along tormented by the need to succeed. There's also Tarantino's great use of colour and composition - still entirely low-key but completely suited to the subject matter - the always great use of music to both establish a mood and set the tone for the characters, and an incredibly complicated final act that dips into the territory of Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950), albeit, with the director's always interesting use of long takes and intricate tracking-shots. The handling of the central theme of the film, of middle-aged characters looking back to the past and seeing only the defeat of their later lives, is brilliantly conveyed by the casting of actors considered forgotten or "washed up"; with the central performance of Grier as the still sassy Jackie Brown being matched by the performance of Robert Forster as proto-love interest Max Cherry, or De Niro as the past-it career criminal, itself a sly reference perhaps to De Niro's own drop in quality over the last fifteen years.
There's also fine support from Tarantino regular Samuel L. Jackson, as well as Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, Michael Bowen, Tommy Lister and a cameo by former "blacksploitation" icon Sid Haig. Without question, Jackie Brown is Tarantino's most mature picture to date; not only in the sense that it's characters are more seasoned, beat-up and worn down than those found in the previous two films, but in the intelligent and thoughtful way that the film has been put together. True, there's nothing here that is as radical or as iconic as Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction, with the gunplay and sporadic bursts of violence having been toned down to a bare minimum; but regardless, the film still fizzles and pops with an energy and enthusiasm that makes Tarantino's work so original and worthwhile. What we have here is an honest look at criminal characters that is as real and unglamorous as you could possibly get, with the dialog enriching and complimenting these characters, as opposed to defining them, and the film-making sensibilities of the director capturing the essence of the story, without overwhelming it.