← Back to Reviews
in
Jackie Brown
A middle aged money laundering African american airline stewardess plots to save herself from her boss and cops.
This movie is coming after the universal success of pulp fiction. A movie that invented lot of dialogues that we take for granted in English language today. So Tarantino tried to follow that up with much more silent subdued movie. This is a very good movie. It doesn't have blood at all.Except may be on car windows.It however does have a lot of guns.The movie's antagonist is an extremely evil guy played by Samuel L Jackson. His role is evil in a very calm and calculated manner. He is evil in the same way a CEO is evil. They can't really be rude with people but they do hit where it hurts. His character is an illegal gun seller. His money is stuck in some south american country. So he uses people to launder his money into US. One such person is our protagonist, Jackie Brown. We find our antagonist at a stage in his career where he wants to retire. Cops are closing in on him but they can't seem to get enough evidence to nail him for considerable prison time. They desperately want to send him to jail before he covers his tracks and disappears. That's when they get in touch with our protagonist.
The person who helps cops connect our antagonist with our protagonist is killed by our antagonist just to not have any loose ends in a pretty evil way. The greatest trait of our antagonist is to evaluate and deal with people. However over the course of the movie our desperate protagonist beat him at his own game. The characterization of our protagonist is very unique. She is what she looks like. A middle Aged African american air-hostess who seems to be on the last legs of her professional life with no savings. That forces her to take on all these odd criminal jobs and mix up with dangerous people. She is in a situation where she has to help cops catch her "boss" red handed, but her life is already in a ****ty position, so even if she got off by setting up her boss her life is still miserable. They depict that aspect of aging so well in this movie. The movie treats this whole situation as a blessing in disguise. At 44 yrs old to her it's doesn't matter what she has achieved. All that matters is if her future is secure.It is almost like she is made to take risks that has life and death consequences.This situation also brings out the street smart attitude in her. The supporting cast involves Robert Forster , Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and Robert De Niro. I think casting is one of the strong suites of Tarantino. He doesn't go after top actors unless he needs 100 million $ budget. Any budget between 30 and 50 million is something he can get just using his name value. So the casting in this movie for the most part excluding De Niro could be non-finance motivated. Even De Niro felt like he is at home in this role. Robert Forster plays an easy going guy who works for the law and this whole situation is his little risky adventure in his life. He seems to be an uptight guy with no shady stuff.Bridget Fonda plays a role that can only be described as a biatch. She is one of those girls who has all the attention her whole life from a very young age. Then she used her charms to travel the world by dating different guys and then in the end she ended up with the antagonist due to his financial security. De Niro plays a bum. He plays a role which is partially a bum and partially a loose canon. What you realize looking at him is that this guy is a fck-up but he also doesn't seem to have the social contract every human have to abide by. People get mad during lot of situations like break up , road rages , sports or in any other public places. But in all those places no one for the most part is gonna kill the other person because they abide by a social contract. But once in a while you see someone on news who breaks the contract and ends up in jail. The relationship between De Niro and Bridget Fonda is one such thing. It's a slow moving train wreck waiting to happen. She is nagging and he doesn't abide by social contract. So he is slowly getting more and more angry until the whole thing reaches to a deadly end.
The sting of getting antagonist caught redhanded at the same time making some money for herself on side that can set her up for life is very interesting. It's not complicated and its not simple. It's complicated to the point of interesting. That's where most directors fail. They make it complicated to the point of either appearing clever or serious. But Tarantino just makes it entertaining. Characters feel lived in. They feel like they have some baggage to them. Some criminal past. Only odd bit of casting which didn't really work out is Michael Keaton as ambitious cop. He doesn't fit the bill nor does he add much to the story. No one made use of Keaton's uniqueness in this movie. He is just this cop who wants to make a name for himself. Replace him with Tim Roth and it would have been the same. Although there is some amount of officialism to Keaton.He doesn't look like someone who would do well undercover. The weaknesses are that there is some looseness in the plot. Cops felt a little dumb. They were cheated way too often. Samuel L Jackson didn't react like a cat cornered in a room. He acted more calm and cool than he should. But in a way what that says is that everybody under estimated Jackie Brown. The cops thought she may steal some small sum of money from the sting. Samuel L Jackson thought she is too scared to make a deal with cops and she would just be stupid to steal the money, so he never anticipated a cop overseeing the trap. That part is brilliant. There is another brilliant thing that I caught which may or may not be intentional is that in the movie there is a scene involving Robert Forster which would be the first scene in the whole movie where his character is actually getting his hands dirty in criminal life that could potentially kill him. It involves going into a dressing room to pick up a bag. The set up for that moment is that the protagonist leaves a bag in the room for Robert Forster to pick up. But she informs to the lady at the cash counter that there is a bag someone left in the dressing room, so that it wouldn't be weird when Ben Forster walk's up to the lady at the counter and ask for his forgotten bag. That's a clever element in the story. To tie up some loose ends. But if he wished Tarantino could have made it more complicated than it is by making the counter lady doubt the bag or open the bag before Forster shows and see that there is something worthy in it. That could have thrown a wrench into Jackie Brown's plans because the moment she sees the money, cops would have been called. But the scene flows so smoothly that the counter lady doesn't even go to dressing room to check what Jackie told. She is just on her phone after Jackie mentions her about the bag. Even when Forster approaches about his forgotten bag, she wouldn't assist him into the dressing room, she just lets him go by himself and pick it up. That's very smooth and uncomplicated compared to the rest of the story. To me that scene is a metaphor to the statement "try your best and god will take care of the rest". This whole sting is a complicated plot with Jackie at the center of it and she could get killed at any moment. But she pulled off most of it and so the higher power kinda helped her by not creating the counter lady as an obstacle. May be I am reading too much into it but even she kinda looked like an angel in the middle of this mean , complicated , sleazy human beings. Angel who helped her enforce her plan casually. This sting also forces Forster to step up his game to risk his boring life for once to do something highly dangerous. In the end Jackie Brown proves to be much more dangerous and smart than rest of the characters in the movie.
A middle aged money laundering African american airline stewardess plots to save herself from her boss and cops.
This movie is coming after the universal success of pulp fiction. A movie that invented lot of dialogues that we take for granted in English language today. So Tarantino tried to follow that up with much more silent subdued movie. This is a very good movie. It doesn't have blood at all.Except may be on car windows.It however does have a lot of guns.The movie's antagonist is an extremely evil guy played by Samuel L Jackson. His role is evil in a very calm and calculated manner. He is evil in the same way a CEO is evil. They can't really be rude with people but they do hit where it hurts. His character is an illegal gun seller. His money is stuck in some south american country. So he uses people to launder his money into US. One such person is our protagonist, Jackie Brown. We find our antagonist at a stage in his career where he wants to retire. Cops are closing in on him but they can't seem to get enough evidence to nail him for considerable prison time. They desperately want to send him to jail before he covers his tracks and disappears. That's when they get in touch with our protagonist.
The person who helps cops connect our antagonist with our protagonist is killed by our antagonist just to not have any loose ends in a pretty evil way. The greatest trait of our antagonist is to evaluate and deal with people. However over the course of the movie our desperate protagonist beat him at his own game. The characterization of our protagonist is very unique. She is what she looks like. A middle Aged African american air-hostess who seems to be on the last legs of her professional life with no savings. That forces her to take on all these odd criminal jobs and mix up with dangerous people. She is in a situation where she has to help cops catch her "boss" red handed, but her life is already in a ****ty position, so even if she got off by setting up her boss her life is still miserable. They depict that aspect of aging so well in this movie. The movie treats this whole situation as a blessing in disguise. At 44 yrs old to her it's doesn't matter what she has achieved. All that matters is if her future is secure.It is almost like she is made to take risks that has life and death consequences.This situation also brings out the street smart attitude in her. The supporting cast involves Robert Forster , Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and Robert De Niro. I think casting is one of the strong suites of Tarantino. He doesn't go after top actors unless he needs 100 million $ budget. Any budget between 30 and 50 million is something he can get just using his name value. So the casting in this movie for the most part excluding De Niro could be non-finance motivated. Even De Niro felt like he is at home in this role. Robert Forster plays an easy going guy who works for the law and this whole situation is his little risky adventure in his life. He seems to be an uptight guy with no shady stuff.Bridget Fonda plays a role that can only be described as a biatch. She is one of those girls who has all the attention her whole life from a very young age. Then she used her charms to travel the world by dating different guys and then in the end she ended up with the antagonist due to his financial security. De Niro plays a bum. He plays a role which is partially a bum and partially a loose canon. What you realize looking at him is that this guy is a fck-up but he also doesn't seem to have the social contract every human have to abide by. People get mad during lot of situations like break up , road rages , sports or in any other public places. But in all those places no one for the most part is gonna kill the other person because they abide by a social contract. But once in a while you see someone on news who breaks the contract and ends up in jail. The relationship between De Niro and Bridget Fonda is one such thing. It's a slow moving train wreck waiting to happen. She is nagging and he doesn't abide by social contract. So he is slowly getting more and more angry until the whole thing reaches to a deadly end.
The sting of getting antagonist caught redhanded at the same time making some money for herself on side that can set her up for life is very interesting. It's not complicated and its not simple. It's complicated to the point of interesting. That's where most directors fail. They make it complicated to the point of either appearing clever or serious. But Tarantino just makes it entertaining. Characters feel lived in. They feel like they have some baggage to them. Some criminal past. Only odd bit of casting which didn't really work out is Michael Keaton as ambitious cop. He doesn't fit the bill nor does he add much to the story. No one made use of Keaton's uniqueness in this movie. He is just this cop who wants to make a name for himself. Replace him with Tim Roth and it would have been the same. Although there is some amount of officialism to Keaton.He doesn't look like someone who would do well undercover. The weaknesses are that there is some looseness in the plot. Cops felt a little dumb. They were cheated way too often. Samuel L Jackson didn't react like a cat cornered in a room. He acted more calm and cool than he should. But in a way what that says is that everybody under estimated Jackie Brown. The cops thought she may steal some small sum of money from the sting. Samuel L Jackson thought she is too scared to make a deal with cops and she would just be stupid to steal the money, so he never anticipated a cop overseeing the trap. That part is brilliant. There is another brilliant thing that I caught which may or may not be intentional is that in the movie there is a scene involving Robert Forster which would be the first scene in the whole movie where his character is actually getting his hands dirty in criminal life that could potentially kill him. It involves going into a dressing room to pick up a bag. The set up for that moment is that the protagonist leaves a bag in the room for Robert Forster to pick up. But she informs to the lady at the cash counter that there is a bag someone left in the dressing room, so that it wouldn't be weird when Ben Forster walk's up to the lady at the counter and ask for his forgotten bag. That's a clever element in the story. To tie up some loose ends. But if he wished Tarantino could have made it more complicated than it is by making the counter lady doubt the bag or open the bag before Forster shows and see that there is something worthy in it. That could have thrown a wrench into Jackie Brown's plans because the moment she sees the money, cops would have been called. But the scene flows so smoothly that the counter lady doesn't even go to dressing room to check what Jackie told. She is just on her phone after Jackie mentions her about the bag. Even when Forster approaches about his forgotten bag, she wouldn't assist him into the dressing room, she just lets him go by himself and pick it up. That's very smooth and uncomplicated compared to the rest of the story. To me that scene is a metaphor to the statement "try your best and god will take care of the rest". This whole sting is a complicated plot with Jackie at the center of it and she could get killed at any moment. But she pulled off most of it and so the higher power kinda helped her by not creating the counter lady as an obstacle. May be I am reading too much into it but even she kinda looked like an angel in the middle of this mean , complicated , sleazy human beings. Angel who helped her enforce her plan casually. This sting also forces Forster to step up his game to risk his boring life for once to do something highly dangerous. In the end Jackie Brown proves to be much more dangerous and smart than rest of the characters in the movie.