There’s a vocal group of film buffs that insists that Quentin Tarantino has never made a movie better than Jackie Brown. And as soon as you see the film’s opening sequence, it becomes hard to disagree. If the chords of Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street” aren’t convincing, the sight of blaxploitation goddess Pam Grier on the screen ought to be enough.
Grier plays the title character, a middle-aged stewardess who smuggles money from Mexico for a gun dealer (Samuel L. Jackson). But when she’s caught by police, Jackie looks to take matters into her own hands and break free of an exhausting life. With the help of a matter-of-fact bails bondsman (who clearly has the hots for her), Jackie crafts a plan in which she can smuggle $500,000 into the country under the protection of the A.T.F.
It sounds like your typical crime film, but Tarantino subverts the genre with snappy dialogue and well-rounded characters whose motives are never clear. The blaxploitation influences are clear throughout, and as Tarantino weaves his character’s stories together, the film reaches a frenetic conclusion that would leave both Shaft and Phillip Marlowe speechless.
