Jackie Brown (film)
Info and Spoiler
Jackie Brown is a 1997 motion picture written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Pam Grier and Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda and Michael Keaton.
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
Release
date December 25, 1997
Running time 154 min.
Language English
Budget
$12,000,000
Followed by Out of Sight (cameos)
The screenplay is based on the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard, although Tarantino made changes to the story line and characters. Pam Grier plays Jackie Brown, a middle aged airline flight attendant who gets coerced by ATF agent Ray Nicolet (Keaton) to help bring down arms smuggler Ordell Robbie (Jackson) and his accomplices ex con bank robber Louis Gara and unemployed courtesan Melanie Ralston (De Niro and Fonda).
In Tarantino form, this film has violence and profanity. Also noteworthy was the casting of Grier and Forster in lead roles. Both were veteran actors, but neither had performed a leading role in many years. Jackie Brown revitalised both actors' careers, Grier's to a greater degree. De Niro and Keaton were major stars, but were cast on supporting roles. The film is in some respects a homage to earlier blaxploitation films, many of which also featured Pam Grier, and the movie's soundtrack is reminiscent of those earlier films as well. It received several major awards nominations, with Robert Forster earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and Samuel L. Jackson and Pam Grier nominated for Golden Globe Awards.
Jackie Brown was released on a two disc Collector's
Edition, with the first one being the movie, and the second one titled 'The Perks',
with many special features for the movie. As with other Tarantino movies, music
features prominently pre existing popular / cult songs. Many of the songs in the
film were released on its soundtrack.
Spoiler Plot
Tarantino's trademark trunk shot.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 eye of the ATF.
Early in the film, Robbie learns 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 Livingston had indeed shared, ATF agents Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton) and Mark Dargus (Michael Bowen) both catch Brown as she arrives in the US with Robbie’s cash. She refuses to deal with Nicolette and Dargus and is sent to jail pending trial.
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 Livingston’s release, to bail 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.
To carry out this plan, Robbie employs several others, including his girlfriend, Melanie Ralston (Bridget Fonda), a former cellmate who befriends Ralston, Louis Gara (Robert De Niro), 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 money before Nicolette makes an arrest.
Unbeknownst to Nicolette or Robbie, Brown plans to deceive them 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 $500,000 under Nicolette’s nose, but in fact only giving Ralston $50,000 and leaving the rest behind in a dressing room for Cherry to later pick up. Brown feigns despair as she calls Nicolette out from hiding and claims Ralston took all the money and ran.
Nicolette leaves assuming Robbie escaped with 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 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.
Cast
Pam
Grier as Jackie Brown
Samuel L. Jackson as Ordell Robbie
Robert Forster
as Max Cherry
Bridget Fonda as Melanie
Robert De Niro as Louis Gara
Michael
Keaton as Ray Nicolette
Chris Tucker as Beaumont Livingston
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.
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 Max Cherry is separated
and Jackie has been married three times, in the film, the viewer knows only 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.
This would seem to be a scene tailor-made to Tarantino's sense of humor, but was
not included in the film, perhaps for budgetary reasons or perhaps in an attempt
to concentrate on the realistic and dramatic angles of the story.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack album coverMain article: Jackie Brown (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. The Original Soundtrack features separate tracks with dialogue from the film.
Trivia
Quentin Tarantino has a cameo
as a electronic voice on Jackie's answering machine.
The poster is a direct
reference to the poster of Foxy Brown; it even includes the same "brown sugar
and spice" quote. 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.
In the
first mall scene, Max Cherry is seen exiting a movie theater while the music for
the ending credits of the movie he just saw is playing. The music is the same
music used in the ending credits of Jackie Brown.
The suit that Jackie buys
is the same one Mia Wallace wears in Pulp Fiction and Elle Driver 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.
Michael Keaton reprises his role as the character
of ATF agent Ray Nicolet in the Steven Soderbergh film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's
Out of Sight starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Samuel L. Jackson also
appears in the film.
In a homage to a Burt Reynolds film, the song "Street
Life" by the Crusaders is used in a scene where Jackie is enroute 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 somepoint walk barefoot in the movie, a trademark of
Tarantino. Jackson's character describes Sheronda as "barefoot, country as
a chicken coop" as well.
Biographies of many famous footballers