Jackie Brown (film)
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| Jackie Brown | |
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| Directed by | Quentin Tarantino |
| Produced by | Lawrence Bender |
| Written by | Novel: Elmore Leonard Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino |
| Starring | Pam Grier Samuel L. Jackson Robert Forster Robert De Niro Michael Keaton Bridget Fonda Michael Bowen Chris Tucker |
| Editing by | Sally Menke |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release date(s) | December 25, 1997 |
| Running time | 154 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $12,000,000 |
| Followed by | Out of Sight (cameos) |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Jackie Brown is a 1997 motion picture written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Pam Grier, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton. This movie follows Tarantino's success directing Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994) which also stars Jackson in a lead role.
The screenplay is based on the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard, although Tarantino made significant changes to the story and characters. Pam Grier plays Jackie Brown, a middle-aged airline flight attendant who gets coerced by ATF agent Ray Nicolette (Keaton) to help them bring down arms smuggler Ordell Robbie (Jackson) and his accomplices: ex-con bank robber Louis Gara and unemployed good-time girl Melanie Ralston (De Niro and Fonda).
In true Tarantino form, this film has a substantial amount of violence and profanity, though much of the violence occurs offscreen. Noteworthy was the casting of Grier and Forster. Both were veteran actors, but neither had performed a leading role in many years. Jackie Brown revitalized both actors' careers, Grier's to a greater degree. De Niro and Keaton were major stars, but were cast in supporting roles. The film is in some respects a homage to earlier blaxploitation films, many of which also featured Grier, and the movie's soundtrack is reminiscent of those earlier films as well. It received critical recognition, with Forster earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and Jackson and Grier being nominated for Golden Globe Awards.
Jackie Brown was released on a two-disc Collector's Edition DVD, with the first disc being the movie, and the second titled "The Perks," with many special features for the movie.
As with other Tarantino movies, music features prominently pre-existing popular and cult songs. Many of the songs in the film were released on its soundtrack.
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[edit] Plot
Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) is a flight attendant for a small Mexican airline, the latest step down for her career in the airline industry. Despite the low pay, the job enables her to smuggle money from Mexico into the United States for Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), a gun runner under the close watch of the ATF.
Robbie learns that another of his workers, Beaumont Livingston (Chris Tucker), has been arrested and, fearing that he will talk to authorities in order to avoid jail time, Robbie arranges for Livingston's bail and shoots him. Acting on information Beaumont had indeed shared, ATF agent Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) and LAPD Lt. Mark Dargus (Michael Bowen) catch Brown as she arrives in the US with Robbie's cash and some cocaine that Brown was unaware was stashed along with the cash. She initially refuses to deal with Nicolette and Dargus, and is sent to jail on possession of drugs with intent to sell.
Robbie, sensing Brown may be just as likely to inform as Livingston had been, arranges to bail her out. He returns to Max Cherry (Robert Forster), the same bail bondsman he used to arrange Beaumont's release, to bail out Brown. Cherry arranges for Brown's bail and, only partly masking his physical attraction, offers to help her determine her legal options. Later that night, Robbie shows up at Brown's house, presumably to eliminate her, but using a gun she stole from Cherry, she cuts a deal whereby she will pretend to help the authorities while still managing to smuggle $500,000 of Robbie's money, enough to allow him to retire.
To carry out this plan, Robbie employs several others, a woman he lives with, Melanie Ralston (Bridget Fonda), Louis Gara (Robert De Niro), his former cellmate who, unknown to Robbie, has a history with Ralston, and a naïve Southern girl, Sheronda (Lisa Gay Hamilton). With Brown's help, Nicolette arranges a sting to catch Robbie, though Brown and Robbie plan to double cross him by diverting the actual money before Nicolette makes an arrest.
Unbeknownst to Nicolette or Robbie, Brown plans to deceive them both with the help of Cherry in order to keep the $500,000 for herself. After a dry run, during which Nicolette could observe the operation, the stage is set for the actual event. Set in an LA mall, Brown stops in a dressing room before the official exchange to swap bags with Ralston and Gara, supposedly passing off the $500,000 under Nicolette's nose, but in fact only giving Ralston $50,000 and leaving the rest behind in the dressing room for Cherry to later pick up. Brown then feigns despair as she calls Nicolette out from hiding and claims Ralston took all the money and ran.
Though angered, Nicolette leaves assuming Robbie has escaped with the money through little fault of Brown's. Ralston grows on Gara's nerves, leading him to shoot her while making his escape. When Robbie later discovers that Gara has only delivered $50,000, he shoots Gara and determines that Brown had his money. Cherry and Brown ultimately lure Robbie back to Cherry's office to claim his money, but Robbie is shot by Nicolette who was hidden in the office. The movie ends with Cherry declining Brown's invitation to join her as she leaves the country with Robbie's money.
[edit] Cast
- Pam Grier as Jackie Brown
- Samuel L. Jackson as Ordell Robbie
- Robert Forster as Max Cherry
- Robert De Niro as Louis Gara
- Michael Keaton as Ray Nicolette
- Bridget Fonda as Melanie Ralston
- Michael Bowen as Mark Dargus
- Chris Tucker as Beaumont Livingston
- Lisa Gay Hamilton as Sheronda
- Tommy "Tiny" Lister Jr. as Winston
Quentin Tarantino has a cameo as the electronic voice on Jackie's answering machine.
[edit] Differences between the novel and film
- The events in the novel take place in West Palm Beach, Florida, whereas the film is set in Los Angeles.
- The main character is named Jackie Burke rather than Jackie Brown ("Jackie Brown" is the name of the gun runner in George V. Higgins' The Friends of Eddie Coyle, a novel which Elmore Leonard has often cited as one of his main inspirations).
- A reissue of Leonard's book was retitled Jackie Brown once the film came out, which meant the book now bore the title of a character who did not exist in the novel.
- In the novel Jackie is caucasian, not black.
- Jackie and Max Cherry have a much closer relationship in the novel, developing into a full-blown affair rather than simply a good understanding of each other and a kiss at the end, as was shown in the film.
- Ordell Robbie was described as a light-skinned black man, nicknamed "Whitebread."
- Louis Gara has no moustache in the novel.
- Melanie is older than portrayed in the film.
- In the novel, Ordell and Louis met at a bar in Detroit, not in prison. It was in that bar that they both discovered they had served time in the same prison, but on different occasions.
- The reader learns that Max Cherry is separated and that Jackie has been married three times; in the film, the viewer knows only that Jackie has been married once before. Max's wife Renee is a secondary character in the novel.
- In the book, Louis Gara actually worked for Max Cherry by bringing in criminals who had forfeited their bail. Louis unofficially quits this job by stealing a pistol and shotgun from Max's office. In the movie, Louis is only shown to work for Ordell Robbie.
- Ordell's money is in Jamaica in the book, not Mexico as in the film. Also, both Mr. Walker and Beaumont are Jamaicans, whereas in the movie, Beaumont was from Kentucky.
- The film was different from most adaptations of Elmore Leonard's work in that it actually has somewhat less violence. In the book there is a scene where several of Ordell's "jackboy" henchmen are trapped in a warehouse full of weapons by ATF agents led by Ray Nicolette; they attempt to blast their way out with an anti-tank rocket launcher, but are too illiterate to read the instructions about how to operate it, and are captured.
[edit] Soundtrack
The soundtrack album for Jackie Brown, entitled Jackie Brown: Music from the Miramax Motion Picture, was released on December 9, 1997.
There was no film score music composed for Jackie Brown as Quentin Tarantino used a variety of different pieces of music with different genres in the film. These include soundtracks from Slash's Snakepit heard throughout the film. The original soundtrack features separate tracks with dialogue from the film.
[edit] DVD
The Special Edition DVD, released by Buena Vista in 2002 Special features include an introduction from Tarantino an hour-long retrospective interview, a subtitle trivia track and soundtrack chapter selection, a half-hour making-of documentary ("How It Went Down"), the entire "Chicks With Guns" video as seen in the movie, many deleted and alternate scenes, including an alternate opening title sequence, Siskel and Ebert's review of the movie, Jackie Brown appearances on MTV, TV spots and theatrical trailers, written reviews and articles and filmographies, and over an hour of trailers for Pam Grier and Robert Forster movies dating from the 1960s onwards. The box also includes a mini-poster of the film, similar to the one above, and on the back of that, two other mini-posters, one of Grier, the other of Forster, both similar to the album cover.
Although the back cover of the Special Edition DVD states that the film is presented in a 2.35:1 Aspect Ratio, it was actually shot with a 1.85:1 ratio, the only Tarantino-directed film to date shot in such a format.
[edit] References to other films
- The poster above is a direct reference to the posters of Grier's films Coffy and Foxy Brown; it even includes quotes from both of them. The typeset used on much of the film's opening titles is also identical to what was used on the opening titles of Foxy Brown.
- The suit that Jackie buys is the same one that Mia Wallace wears in Pulp Fiction and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) in Kill Bill.
- Jackie's car is the same car driven by Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction.
- Pam Grier is mentioned in Tarantino's directorial debut, Reservoir Dogs.
- The intro titles to Jackie Brown are a careful homage to the intro titles to The Graduate. Where Dustin Hoffman passes wearily through LAX past white tiles to a sombre folk soundtrack, Pam Grier walks past the same spot years later to a soaring soul soundtrack ("Across 110th Street" by Bobby Womack) — even the tiles are multi-colored. This neatly illustrates the nature of the cultural change in Los Angeles in the intervening years. There are other similarities to The Graduate, such as the theme of age, and the final scenes of both films.
- In a homage to a Burt Reynolds film, the song "Street Life" by Randy Crawford is used in a scene where Jackie is en route to the climactic set up in Del Amo Mall. This song also opened the Burt Reynolds film Sharky's Machine (1981).
- In yet another homage to a film with actor/director Burt Reynolds, the scene where Ordell and Louis contemplate who took the money in the VW van, is linked to a comparative shot in the 1985 film Stick which is also based on an Elmore Leonard novel.
- The two main women in the movie, Grier's and Fonda's characters at some point walk barefoot in the movie, a trademark of Tarantino. Jackson's character describes Sheronda as "barefoot, country as a chicken coop" as well.
- Michael Keaton would go on to reprise his role as Ray Nicolette in the film Out of Sight.
- When Jackie first meets Sharonda at the mall, the cup on Sharonda's tray reads "Acuna Boys". This is the name of the gang that Estaban Vihaio runs in Kill Bill. The Acuna Boys are also referenced in the Death Proof portion of Grindhouse.
- The kangaroo over which Butch's watch was in Pulp Fiction can be seen in Simone's house, near the telephone.
[edit] External links
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