(possible) spoiler alert!

Rating: Null/10 (11 July 2000)

I saw Jackie Brown when it came out in Dutch theatres in the summer of 1998. I didn't come back to it until last weekend and what I saw was a much better movie than I remembered.
We're living in times of quick-fix; easy answers; rages; and getting (and wanting) predictability (in the movies). Director Quentin Tarantino has been treated rather superficial. When he raised interest with Reservoir Dogs and proved he wasn't a one hit wonder with Pulp Fiction, books were written on him as if he already could look back on a thirty year career in the movies. And when his new film Jackie Brown came out, not only people were disappointed, they said that Tarantino was already on his way down. Boy, we sure love (NEED) to label people, don't we? Why wait with writing a person's epitaph until he or she is dead?
Lets take a look at some of the criticisms on Jackie Brown: It lacks the comic book look of Pulp Fiction; it lacks the action of Pulp Fiction; it lacks the humor of Pulp Fiction, it lacks the grandness of Pulp Fiction; it lacks the great dialogue of Pulp Fiction. Wow, people sure expected a Pulp Fiction 2, now, didn't they? The only way these people could have been pleased was by showing them Pulp Fiction again when they paid admission for Jackie Brown. Another complaint from a lot of people: They could have told the same story in an hour and a half. Sigh. Gee, people, a lot of you out there are really stuck to a certain way of watching movies and being confronted with the same kind of storytelling, aren't you? A lot of you out there don't want to experience something new or different. You want to get what you expected, even if it means the same old superficial, predictable thing. Jackie Brown isn't about the story. The story is an alibi to look at a bunch of interesting people. In the end, there IS a crime to be solved, but Tarantino takes his time to work things up to the climax. Normally, a crime movie uses its characters as pawns that are placed and re-placed on the board. Everything that happens has got to do with the plot (or the old romantic or comic subplot). Not here. We get to watch people. We get to listen to people. We stay with them for quite a while, watching them as they have a drink in a bar; are shopping for CD's; or talk about themselves; we slowly start to fear that isn't going to happen to people who are falling love with each other. We really slow down to look at them. We sometimes stay close on a character's face when he or she is silently thinking. In one scene, Max comes to jackie to collect his stolen gun. We already know that he has a crush on her, so we figure: they screw and we cut to next scene, going on with the plot. No. Jackie sits Max down, makes coffee for him, puts on her favorite album and they talk. They talk about getting old, about not have gotten out of life what they hoped or expected. Tarantino isn't trying to make the dialogue cool. But it's interesting and well-acted. In another scene, bikini bombshell Melanie and Louis are left alone by Ordell. We expect sex, and, indeed, they do have sex, but not before they have chit-chatted and talked about their pasts in a natural, unconstrained manner. Is that grandness per se? A change is always for the better? No. But it DOES work here, causing a double whammy. Tarantino did a new take on pulp fiction with his movie of the same name. Here, he tries to do his take on a genre that is usually driven by action and plot. Tarantino lets it be driven by characters. It works because Tarantino is a great director. It works because tarantino loves these people and makes the audience care about them too.
Some folks say deNiro('s talent) is wasted, as he spends most of the film hanging on a couch with a dumb expression on his face. But look what happens in the finale. His character Louis may have started to come off as a harmless log; we discover that he can't function when under stress and the transformation from a seemingly harmless guy to a extremely dangerous looking individual who you'd better not say one more word to, is flabbergasting and yet totally believable. Would this have worked with a lesser actor? Louis not only changes drastically near the end but he is also responsible for the
most shocking thing that happens in this film. This shock gains impact from the fact that we spend so much time with this character acting harmless and even sort of pathetic. Another great example. Tarantino can't be labelled; his characters can't be labelled. Not until the end.
I love Jackie Brown. I also love the film of the same name. Quentin, you rock, man.
8 out of 10.