Jackie Brown (film)
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Jackie Brown is a 1997 motion picture, the third film directed by Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Pam Grier and Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and Aimee Graham.
The screenplay is based on the novel Rum Punch by American novelist Elmore Leonard, although Tarantino made considerable 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 Nicolette (Keaton) to help them bring down arms smuggler Ordell (Jackson) and his accomplices (De Niro and Fonda).
In true Tarantino form, this film has a substantial amount of violence and profanity. It has been criticized, as was Tarantino's previous film Pulp Fiction, for the frequent use of the word "nigger" in the dialogue.
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 in supporting roles.
The film is in some respects an 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.
The film 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.
Trivia
- Quentin Tarantino has a cameo as the electronic voice on Jackie's answering machine.
- 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 that Mia Wallace wears in Pulp Fiction.
- Tarantino's only brush with "real" crime was an arrest for shoplifting Elmore Leonard's novel The Switch, which marks the first appearance of the characters of Louis and Ordell.
- Tarantino continued his love of "has-been" stars with the use of Pam Grier, although, it should be known that he had wanted to work with her for a long time.
- 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—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 Nicolette in the Steven Soderbergh film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's Out of Sight starring George Clooney and Jennifer López. Furthermore, Samuel L. Jackson makes a surprise cameo at the end of that film, as a prisoner in the van with George Clooney.
- 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 climatic 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 film Stick 1985. Coincidentally, also based on an Elmore Leonard novel.
Differences between the novel and film
- The events in the novel take place in Miami, 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 African-American.
- 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.
- The novel features a sex scene between Max and Jackie.
- Ordell Robbie was described as a light-skinned black man.
- 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.
- In the book Louis Gara actually worked for Max Cherry and didn't "clear out" until after stealing a gun from the office.
- 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 "nujack" 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 humour, 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.
External links
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