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 Somehow I had made it this far in life without seeing Jackie Brown and that pisses me off.
I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed by a Quentin Tarantino film so how did I let Jackie Brown slip under my Cool Filmz radar? Just what in the hell have I been doing since this Elmore Leonard-based flick was put to the talents of our good friend Q. Tarantino? Man, I could have had another two and a half hours of quality entertainment in my life. Here’s what I had been missing...
 After the opening credits roll with a shot of the eponymous character, a flight attendant played by Pam Grier, sliding down a people mover at an airport, we see Ordell Robbie and Louis Gara, played by Samuel L. Jackson and Robert DeNiro, respectively (this begged another question at first: why had I not seen this Robert DeNiro movie before?
That particular question was answered when I realized he was playing a character devoid of emotion and with little plot contribution for the largest part of the movie) sitting on a couch and talking about guns. Soon thereafter we see Jackie back at the airport getting her bag searched by ATF agents, one of whom is Michael Keaton, a guy who usually finds his way into good movies (see: most work not called Multiplicity). Roughly $50,000 dollars is found in her bag along with some drugs and she realizes the agents must have been tipped off because they new how much money was there right off the bat. It turns out this fella named Beaumont talked which is why Ordell kills him before getting a bail bond for Jackie from a guy named Max who is conveniently a bail bondsman. Jackie is understandably pissed off about being arrested because, as it turns out, the money she had was from Ordell’s gun sale profit fund in Cabo San Lucas and she was bringing it in as a favor.To try and get something out of the whole ordeal for herself she tells the ATF agents about Ordells’s money. She also tells Ordell that she told the agents and the bail bondsman finds out as does DeNiro’s character and Melanie, some white girl who hangs out and smokes drugs at Ordell’s place. Needless to say, and without giving away the entire plot, the money exchange gets quite convoluted. Ordell ends up getting shot and killed and somehow Jackie ends up with the money, which shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler because the freaking movie is named after her. So what’s left to say after that brief - but not, certainly not half-assed – summary; I guess I can start by saying that if you are a fan of Tarantino flicks you’ll probably like this one also. It comes complete with all the usual trappings of his films such as shots of feet and characters telling long soliloquy-esque stories, but is also a little less violent than his other works. There are no massive bloodbaths or drug overdoses, just a tangled web of greed that you really have to pay attention to. Would I say this is his best work? No, I wouldn’t. But it is definitely at least Queen-worthy and therefore worth watching. So stop wasting your time doing whatever crap you’re doing now. Kevin Meehan is a writer living in Pittsburgh
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