QT's Best--SPOILERS

Rating: Null/10 (23 November 2004)

Jackie Brown is Quentin Tarantino's opera. Most critics and audiences were disappointed by the film, expecting another one of QT's bloodbath exercises.
I can't understand how a clever, empty style-fest like Pulp Fiction could've been praised as a masterpiece while others are actually disappointed to see that Tarantino has decided to slow down and focus on his characters. Here we have the same play on old 70's gangster clichés as in Pulp and Reservoir Dogs. However, it is done with depth (which critics didn't notice), flow (which bored critics), and refinement (which really made critics mad). I'm sad to say that those who are expecting Pam Grier to whip out a shotgun and preach the Bible will be disappointed. Here we have a story about what happens to gangsters in their old age, when they get worn out by an intense profession. That's not all it is about; each character in the ensemble has his own story. Grier, as Jackie Brown, is scared about the future, with a lousy job as an airline stewardess and a drug charge hanging over her head; she is also getting old and fears that her 'foxy brown' image might be wearing thin. Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson) is a gun dealer who wants to retire, but is such a megalomaniac that few of his friends actually trust him; the odds of him ever being able to comfortably settle down are slim to none. He is also concerned about his partner, Louis (Robert De Niro), who just got out of the joint and seems to have lost the street-smarts (and even the regular smarts) that he had before he went away. Bridget Fonda is Melanie, Ordell's mistress of sorts, whose life has slowed down; she spends her time doing drugs, watching TV, and scheming against Ordell. Max Cherry (Robert Forster) is a by-the-book bail bondsman who is fifty-six years old and is thinking about getting into a scheme with Jackie.
The only main character without too much depth is Ray Nicolette (played by Michael Keaton, who plays the same character in Steven Soderbergh's dazzling Out of Sight); Michael Keaton plays him memorably though. Grier gives a triumphantly good performance, blending her 70's funky (albeit tacky) style and wonderful charisma with great classic melodrama. Robert Forster is just as good in a subtler and more poignant performance; what is most likable about his character is that the two main reasons he starts thinking about scheming against Ordell with Jackie is that (a.) he loves her and (b.) he wants to get his young genre-cool back. Samuel L. Jackson drops his flashiness-for-the-sake-of-flashiness from Pulp Fiction and plays a sad, lonely man in a world filled with friends who hate his guts. He wants to trick everyone into thinking that he is Jules, from Pulp, and tries to justify his life in front of others. But, in the end, he is a toothless rat, threatening others in a feeble and desperate tone of voice.
De Niro and Fonda are both funny in a relationship that turns for the worse and ends in a way that reminds us how fickle a life the crook can lead, one where relationships can shift on the whim of one's viscera. Spike Lee and others were infuriated by Tarantino's constant use of the n-word in the film, mostly by Samuel L. Jackson. This criticism misses the point of what QT is trying to do: degrade the n-word. The characters use it, and re-use, until it is drained of its terrible power. It is the kind of wonderful liberation that a nihilist like Spike Lee could never understand. Based on Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard, Jackie Brown is packed with twists and with characters discussing their next betrayal to the extent that we are never sure who is being lied to. But each twist means something to each character, which makes the film great. Tarantino is famous for his dialogue, yet his dialogue is not the kind of clever crook-talk that someone like David Mamet delivers; it is funny without the characters knowing that it is funny (the kind of funny that Elmore Leonard has always loved). Tarantino is really an old-fashioned gangster filmmaker, like Raoul Walsh, who doesn't rely on clever lines as much as casual cheer (such as the scene in Walsh's The Roaring Twenties in which James Cagney stuffs a cigar in someone's mouth). He has a love for cynical movies in a humanistic and joyful way that makes him rise above the filmmakers he loves. He cares about every character in Jackie Brown and is sad when one gets killed.