Jackie Brown

Miramax Films | Release Date: December 25, 1997

8.3	USER SCORE Universal acclaim based on 550 Ratings

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TomBeltranMay 27, 2013

Posted on 5/26/13 08:04 PM
QTs third film delivers none of the thrills you would expect to get from his work however this film does deliver enough twist and turns that make this film enjoyable and not a such a waste of time

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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FabriccioSep 5, 2016

After all is said and done, this film just isn't worth 2 and a half hours of anybody's time. Even Tarantino's brilliance and the excellent cast couldn't turn this moronic plot line into something compelling. I don't know what on earthAfter all is said and done, this film just isn't worth 2 and a half hours of anybody's time. Even Tarantino's brilliance and the excellent cast couldn't turn this moronic plot line into something compelling. I don't know what on earth possessed Quentin Tarantino to choose a story like this to do a movie.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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JonLAug 16, 2007

I can certainly see what Tarantino wanted to do--explore the characters, but these characters are so incredibly mundane that it's just painful at 160 minutes. I think Tarantino realized this and just padded it out, which is why every I can certainly see what Tarantino wanted to do--explore the characters, but these characters are so incredibly mundane that it's just painful at 160 minutes. I think Tarantino realized this and just padded it out, which is why every shot in the movie is held to an absurdity, which probably made it impossible to edit to something reasonable given the lack of weight in the material. The characters are boring rehashes (a waste of great talent), the dialogue Tarantino has so much obvious talent for is mediocre and the film is a good hour too long (maybe even more). What a shame.… Expand

1 of 3 users found this helpful

survivorfan989Apr 29, 2013

This quirky film had a solid cast with some great acting, but that was the best thing going for it as storyline wise I was a little lost and even bored at times. I quite like Tarantino's films but this isn't one of them, and even though I canThis quirky film had a solid cast with some great acting, but that was the best thing going for it as storyline wise I was a little lost and even bored at times. I quite like Tarantino's films but this isn't one of them, and even though I can appreciate where he was going with this one and I'm sure others liked it, I simply didn't as it's just not my type of movie I can sit back and enjoy. Props to Pam Grier who played a great female lead though.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

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SummersausageJan 12, 2013

The start of this movie was excellent, a classic Tarentino brutal fun ride but the drawn out build up and uninteresting characters bring it down to a mid level movie.

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

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amheretojudgeMay 22, 2019

Jackson is hyper about it and De Niro is taking it slow. this choreography is more focused on stunts than authentic dance.

Jackie Brown Tarantino is conning us. Literally. With a sublime texture scraped off from these characters, hisJackson is hyper about it and De Niro is taking it slow. this choreography is more focused on stunts than authentic dance.

Jackie Brown

Tarantino is conning us. Literally. With a sublime texture scraped off from these characters, his display of the boneless flesh is too flamboyant to break or shock you. The co-writer and director, Quentin Tarantino's fourth film is adapted from the novel Rum Punch written by Elmore Leonard. And this adaptation unfortunately didn't go well for Tarantino. Busy in his own state of mind and comic timing, Tarantino is either leaping over stuff or overstretching stuff. This results in a bizarre pace for the film, something that takes us plenty of time to fit in into.

And clocking at more than two and a half hours, the flips and turns that Tarantino so effortlessly whispers in the script could barely be reliable enough to fiddle us with these many hokum events. And yes, it does work when it comes to pump our heart fast and scare us through one-liners by Samuel L. Jackson who states it without blinking his eyes. But that could have easily been carried off, without individually introducing these characters in the narration.

By the way, no one hypes up the name of the character like Tarantino, before they even arrive or impress us, the flown rumors are so bedazzling that you ought to cheer up when they finally enter the screen. Jackson has got the coolness of the all the plot points, with a gold membership card, he has access to every track of the film and yet, it feels like he never fully squeezes it out from the script. In fact, any of the cast member, they never come alive on screen, with such a caliber of cast, from Robert De Niro to Michael Keaton, you'd think you would be moved by them colliding on the screen and instead you have to rely upon Jackie Brown who will and does cheat you; she is told to.… Expand

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SpunkyMonkeyMay 8, 2012

Jackie Brown is a fairly good and watchable movie - it's got that Tarantino staple mark of building characters so you really get to know them, and doing this helps blur the simple line usually found between 'goodie vs baddie' for you toJackie Brown is a fairly good and watchable movie - it's got that Tarantino staple mark of building characters so you really get to know them, and doing this helps blur the simple line usually found between 'goodie vs baddie' for you to appreciate the film from a few different angles. It breaks tradition with the typical young, virile lead roles replaced by elder, more realistic characters and deserves recognition for doing so as it gives the film a more authentic flavour. It also delivers a nicely sequenced last 1/4, which flows well and finishes the film off satisfyingly. The trouble is, there's too many boring bits in it and it's slowly paced - the middle 3rd seems to drag especially. It's not a boring film overall, but it does have boring bits and it's a tough ask to watch it all the way through in one sitting without a beer break. Nothing mind-blowing, decent enough and with a great soundtrack, but nothing particularly memorable either.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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gzayas91Aug 1, 2018

Decent, but too long. Not for me, I like Reservoir Dogs better. I didn't care for anything of this movie, I see this a middle of the road.

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MovieMasterEddyApr 3, 2016

Tarantino's Latest Caper `Jackie Brown' loses velocity.

The saga of Quentin Tarantino is unique. Three years ago, he was a critical and commercial darling with "Pulp Fiction." Then he went on to annoy everybody by showing up everywhere andTarantino's Latest Caper `Jackie Brown' loses velocity.

The saga of Quentin Tarantino is unique. Three years ago, he was a critical and commercial darling with "Pulp Fiction." Then he went on to annoy everybody by showing up everywhere and producing bad movies and blabbing on talk shows, to the extent that now, with the release of "Jackie Brown," his first feature since "Pulp Fiction," it's as if he's making a comeback.

Maybe he understands the value of diminished expectations. Had "Jackie Brown" been released at the tail end of Quentinmania, back when he was Orson Welles Jr., everybody would have been disappointed. But today, with much of the public ready to write Tarantino off as either an idiot savant or an idiot, "Jackie Brown" is looking like a fairly satisfactory piece of work.

It might even be a wise career move: Make a movie that's not so great as to annoy those rooting against you, yet good enough that no one can deny your talent. One gets the feeling, watching "Jackie Brown," that it's the kind of film Tarantino could make once every 10 months for the rest of his life. The picture is an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's 1995 best-seller "Rum Punch," but with the setting moved from Florida to Los Angeles and the dialogue Quentinized. The novel's Jackie Burke, a white woman, has become Jackie Brown, played by Pam Grier, the legendary heroine of the blaxploitation films of the '70s.

From the beginning Tarantino tries to give "Jackie Brown" the flavor of a '70s low-budget genre movie, with interiors that evoke that decade and a soundtrack made up of early '70s funk music. It doesn't quite work. The music clashes with the modern-day setting and takes the audience out of the moment.
Yet from the first scene, there is the kick of once again entering a Tarantino universe. Samuel L. Jackson plays Ordell, a dealer in illegal weapons, who lectures a newly released ex-con about the relative merits of various guns: "Then there's the AK-47, when you absolutely, positively have to kill every m-- in the room."

Tarantino introduces a number of characters and manages to keep track of all of them. Robert De Niro plays Ordell's ex-con buddy, a fairly bland role. Bridget Fonda has slightly more fun as Ordell's girlfriend, an ill-tempered pothead. But the heart of the story involves Jackie, a 44- year-old flight attendant who's arrested for smuggling Ordell's money across the Mexican border.

The movie fully exploits Grier's patented toughness in only one scene, in which Jackie gets the drop on Ordell when he comes to kill her. Unfortunately, Tarantino chooses to film that moment in almost total darkness. But Grier brings other qualities into the mix besides toughness: poise, an aura of fatalism and wisdom, and an idiosyncratic style. Grier talks the way Johnny Cash sings -- out of the side of her mouth. "Jackie Brown" is essentially a caper movie, in which Jackie and her smitten bail bondsman (Robert Forster) set out to steal half a million dollars from Ordell right under the noses of federal officers. But Tarantino jazzes up the story with characteristic comic touches. Crooks leave a crime scene and have trouble finding their car in a parking lot. Violence springs up for the silliest of reasons, with a suddenness that stirs uneasy laughter.

Borrowing a trick from Stanley Kubrick's "The Killing," Tarantino presents the same incident involving an exchange of money three times, from three points of view. He does it for little reason besides sheer playfulness. But playfulness is OK. There's something appealing in watching Tarantino borrow styles and techniques as if he were a kid taking items from a toy chest.

Yet, as the film wears on, the mar riage of Leonard and Tarantino proves incompatible, or at least rocky.

Tarantino's playful asides and slow buildups rob Leonard's caper story of its velocity. Scene by scene, "Jackie Brown" is amusing, but after two hours, it seems sluggish, and at that point still has a half-hour to go.

The slow pace kills the sense of urgency, and the length and breadth of the film makes the story seem insignificant. Tarantino is still someone to watch, but "Jackie Brown," before it's over, becomes a who-cares proposition.… Expand

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