They Were All "Too Cool For School"

Rating: 10/10 (21 February 2007)

I loved this movie and I have watched it many times, and each time I got something different out of it.
Why is everyone trying to pigeonhole Quentin Tarantino? Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown are two entirely different movies - why should one be like the other? Is Quentin supposed to bask in the critical acclaim his past movies received for the rest of his life? Part of the creative process is doing something new and different.
It goes without saying that the acting was superb and Robert DeNiro's performance was deliberately understated. Louis came off as a dim-witted ex-con but his character showed why he shouldn't be underestimated. Louis's facial expressions spoke volumes and indicated that he was not a man to be trifled with - you could sense the dangerous, lethal aspects of his personality simmering beneath the surface. The warning look he gave Melanie in the department store when he told her to stay put, should have told her that he was capable of snapping if provoked. That is what makes Robert DeNiro a master actor - he doesn't have to say anything to command our attention, he just becomes his character and lets his talent speak for itself.
Another commenter on IMDb stated that Louis was turned on by Melanie's wiggling toes. Louis wasn't "turned on," he was grossed out and didn't want one of her nasty toes to touch the rim of his glass. You notice how quickly he snatched his drink away to make sure that didn't happen. Louis seemed to observe the people around him closely and never seemed to quite trust everything they said or did. He didn't like it that Melanie had no loyalty to her friends and was shrewd enough to realize she would turn against him just like she did Ordell. She was just another little bimbo to get high with and use for sex. He used her, not the other way around. A man who is attracted to a woman doesn't blow her away like a piece of garbage because she is getting on his nerves. Like Ordell said, "Couldn't you just hit her?"
The actual "sting" wasn't that clever and they tried to make it seem more complicated than it had to be. They were exchanging a bag of money in the fitting room for heaven's sake. They were acting as if it were a high stakes caper, or they were double agents who were putting their lives in danger by smuggling incriminating documents to the CIA or another government agency.
The realistic "down home" feel of the movie was great and you actually felt that you were sitting in the Cockatoo lounge listening in on Jackie and Ordell when they were talking at the bar - or chatting casually with Jackie and Max over coffee in her apartment. It was a comfortable and familiar scene and one to which we could easily relate.
The musical score was perfect and showed that Quentin Tarantino really did "get it right" and knew exactly what he was going for with the feel of this movie. Perhaps he is conceited, but the man is talented and he knows it. I enjoyed this movie much better than some of his other films because it didn't rely on extreme violence to hold the audience's attention and gave us credit for having enough intelligence to appreciate the dialog and the slower pace of the story. Some of us know the type of dumb country girl with a ghetto name similar to "Sheronda" who will believe anything a city slicker tells her. We know that there are plenty of real life blond, slutty junkie chicks who think they are smart, sexy and clever only to wind up strung out, beaten up or dead because they were naive little posers in the first place.
I'm not really a Samuel Jackson fan but I was wrong - the man is in the master class with DeNiro, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, etc. Who else could have played Ordell Robbie so convincingly? The clothes, the ponytail, the chain smoking, the ghetto grammar, the profanity, the lying, murderous persona that was Ordell Robbie - simply brilliant. When he was in the car with Louis just after he discovered that he had been tricked out of his money, I could feel how enraged he was and I knew he was going to get rid of Louis for being such an incompetent fool. If Louis hadn't told Ordell that he saw Max Cherry in the dress department, he might not have ended up dead. Did you notice that Ordell shot him in the stomach and chest just like Louis did Melanie? I was a little bothered by the fact that Ordell said "motherf**ker" in almost every sentence he uttered. It smacked of overkill to me.
I thought Chris Tucker's small part proved the old theatrical adage, "there are no small parts." You didn't know whether to laugh or cry over his indignation over being asked to get into a dirty car trunk and you knew that Ordell was tricking him so that he could dispose of him later. He looked like a silly, low-level criminal wannabe (the wild, kinky hairstyle as if he had just gotten out of bed to answer the door and the cheap tee-shirt (light blue in the front and dark blue in the back)),who had just gotten out of jail and was gullible enough to believe Ordell's promise of "ten minutes" in the trunk until they arrived in Korea Town, and a tasty meal at Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles later.