Jackie Brown (2002) from Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski) and Tuna

Elmore Leonard is the modern master of the twisty, sleazy psychological noir, and Jackie Brown is Quentin Tarantino's take on Leonard's novel Rum Punch.

Tarantino's previous films, Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, had been adolescent fantasies, like the stories that lent their name to Pulp Fiction.  For those of you unfamiliar with what "pulp fiction" really is, it was the whole oeuvre of cheap sensationalist paperback books and magazines that were the pre-war equivalent of television. Some of them were regular monthly editions, some of them were one-time issues. The boys of my dad's generation read the pulps and listened to radio dramas, much as I read comic books and watched TV.  Same psychology, earlier technology. Although it was not a medium suitable to distribute Jane Austen novels, the pulps produced some of America's best adventure stories, sports fiction, detective fiction, sword and sorcery, horror tales, Westerns, and other popular entertainments. 

The pulps cost five cents or ten cents, and had such names as Argosy, Detective Weekly, Dime Mystery Magazine, Weird Tales, Amazing Stories, Saucy Stories, and Western Round-Up. These stories generally existed in a white male world, in which women and foreigners were one-dimensional characters to be defeated or seduced. The Native Americans were savages, the Asians were sadistic and inscrutable, and the women were objects or evil or both. It was a boy's club, years before there was a notion of political incorrectness, and all non-white non-males were subject to savage nicknames. 

The  format could boast of regular contributors like H.P. Lovecraft (horror) Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan), Erle Stanley Gardner (Perry Mason), Dashiell Hammett (Sam Spade), Max Brand (Westerns and Dr. Kildare), Sax Rohmer (Fu Manchu), and C.S. Forester (Horatio Hornblower). Occasional contributors included such distinguished names as Tennessee Williams, Paul Gallico, Philip Wylie, and Ray Bradbury. If Elmore Leonard had lived in an earlier time, he would have written for the pulps alongside Dashiell Hammett, his spiritual ancestor.

Despite his own tendency to make lurid, unrealistic, smart-ass movies, Tarantino surprised (and, in fact, disappointed) many people by making Jackie Brown a film for grown-ups. Oh, sure, he throws in plenty of outrageous dialogue and situations, and some of the unexpected casual violence he is famous for, but the great triumph of Jackie Brown is its depth and realism. In Tarantino's previous films, none of the characters or situations bear any resemblance to reality. They exist in a fantasy universe. They are drummed up as larger-than-life entertainments for our pleasure. The characters and situations in Jackie Brown are different. You can actually imagine that Jackie, the prematurely washed-up stewardess; Ray, the honest Fed; and Max Cherry, the world-weary bail bondsman, are real people doing what they have to do. As in real life, we can see two characters forming an attachment, but they don't jump in bed, the guy is shy and intimidated, and neither of them is sure the whole thing makes sense. The philosophical undercurrent of the film is the fear of aging, of losing control of life, of being without a future, of feeling that life is mere routine, or that all the good moments lay behind in time.

To me, that makes the film special. Tarantino's earlier movies are movies about movie characters. This one is a movie about people.

It also has a complex and interesting plot. Jackie, although 44 and smart, works as an underpaid flight attendant for the world's worst airline because a criminal conviction in the past makes her virtually unemployable. She supplements her income by smuggling in laundered cash from Mexico for an arms dealer. Spurred on by a tip, the Feds catch her and force her to co-operate. She then conceives of an incredibly complex scam in which she makes the feds think she's co-operating with them by doing what the arms dealer wants her to do, while she simultaneously convinces the arms dealer that she's co-operating with him by doing what the feds want her to do. Both sides believe her, because she hides only tiny details from each side, but those tiny details are enough for her to work her own scam. The bail bondsman is a guy who has seen it all and knows how it all works, so he helps her with the details. Or maybe he's being scammed as well. You'll have to watch it to find out.

Tarantino demonstrated a real genius for extracting perfect performances from unexpected sources. Pam Grier was always drop-dead gorgeous and the epitome of cool, but she was never skillful with a line. Here, however, she rings nary a false note. She wasn't alone. If you had wanted to place a bet in 1995 on Robert Forster getting an Oscar nomination, I suppose you might have gotten 1000-1 from the British bookies. Two years later, thanks to Tarantino, he had one and, more important, deserved it. His Max Cherry is a completely credible character, and quite sympathetic - that's not common in a Tarantino movie. Think back on it. Has there ever been a character you liked in another Tarantino film? Not likely. The people are sometimes interesting, but always slimebags. In this film, you like Pam and Forster, and you even warm to Michael Keaton as the callous, no-nonsense, but ultimately trustworthy federal agent.

In addition to those characters, you have the king of "film as jazz", Samuel L himself, playing his usual brilliant riffs as the swaggering, blustering, arrogant, sarcastic, arms dealer who is not quite as "bad" and not quite as smart as he thinks he is.

All in all, you have to think that a movie in which Robert DeNiro is the worst thing in the film really can't be too bad at all.