An aging flight attendant (Pam Grier) working for a low rent airline and running money for a lethal arms dealer (Samuel L. Jackson) is arrested by two ATF agents (Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen) for carrying a large sum of money and a small amount of cocaine. Thus commences a complicated and deadly game of double and triple crosses also involving a bail bondsman (Robert Forster), a beach bunny (Bridget Fonda), and a lackadaisical layabout ex-con (Robert De Niro). Working from Elmore Leonard's Rum Punch, Quentin Tarantino's follow-up to Pulp Fiction is done just about as good as you can do a small crime film. It features the expected violence and heightened dialogue on top of a complex plot structure and features dynamic performances from Grier and Forster, and a menacing one from Jackson. Of all his films, Jackie Brown is the only one that Tarantino developed from a book and I wonder if this isn't a preferable method. Working from someone else's story provides a welcomed restraint that still allows him to incorporate his own flourishes without resorting to out of hand, kill everything that moves culminations that have tarnished his recent films. Jackie Brown proves that going out on a whimper can be just as effective, if not more so.
