Jackie Brown is a 1997 American crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, based on the 1992 novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard. It stars Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton and Robert De Niro. In the film, Jackie Brown (Grier), a flight attendant, becomes embroiled in a battle to smuggle money between the United States and Mexico.
Jackie Brown pays homage to 1970s blaxploitation films, particularly Coffy and Foxy Brown, both of which also starred Grier. It is the only feature-length film directed by Tarantino that was based on another work.
Jackie Brown was released in the United States on December 25, 1997, by Miramax Films. It received positive reviews and grossed $74.7 million worldwide on a $12 million budget. It was both Grier and Forster's first lead role in a major film for many years, and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Forster, and Golden Globe Award nominations for Jackson and Grier.
Plot Jackie Brown, a flight attendant, smuggles money from Mexico into the United States for Ordell Robbie, a gun runner in Los Angeles. When Beaumont Livingston—Ordell's bagman—is arrested, Ordell hires bail bondsman Max Cherry to bail him out. Ordell then lures Beaumont into the trunk of a car and murders him.
Acting on information Beaumont already provided, ATF agent Ray Nicolette and LAPD detective Mark Dargus intercept Jackie with Ordell's cash and a bag of cocaine, which Jackie didn't know was with the money. After Jackie is sent to jail, Ordell has Max pay her bail. Upon meeting Jackie, Max immediately becomes smitten. Jackie requests that Max takes her to a bar to get a drink, where Max reveals that Beaumont is dead. After Jackie arrives home, Ordell arrives at Jackie's apartment to kill her, but she pulls out a gun she stole from Max's glovebox. Jackie negotiates a deal with Ordell; she will pretend to help the authorities while smuggling in the remaining $550,000 of Ordell's money.
Ordell replaces Beaumont with Louis Gara, a criminal associate and former cellmate who was recently released from prison. Melanie Ralston, one of Ordell's mistresses, asks Louis to betray Ordell and take the money for themselves. Louis tells Ordell, but Ordell replies that he is not concerned about her, given that he knows that she is not to be trusted.
Unaware of the plan to smuggle in $550,000, Nicolette and Dargus devise a sting to catch Ordell during a transfer of $50,000. Jackie plans to keep the remaining $500,000 for herself. She recruits Max, offering him a 10% cut. During a test run, Jackie smuggles in $10,000, with Nicolette and Dargus aware, to swap with Sheronda, one of Ordell's girlfriends, at a shopping mall. After Jackie leaves, Max observes an unknown woman swap bags with Sheronda. He informs Jackie and she confronts Ordell, who reveals that he sent Simone Hawkins, another mule, to secure his money as a backup.
On the day of the transfer, Ordell discovers that Simone has left town with the $10,000. He reluctantly recruits Melanie to perform the swap instead. Jackie enters a dressing room in a department store to try on a suit. Although she told Nicolette that the exchange will take place in the food court, she told Ordell that she will swap bags in the dressing room. However, the bag contains only $40,000; Jackie leaves the rest in the dressing room for Max to pick up. Jackie takes $5,000 and places it on top of the bag she gives to Melanie. Jackie runs to the food court and finds Nicolette, claiming that Melanie burst into the dressing room and stole the money.
During the exchange, Melanie is uncooperative. In the parking lot, after she makes fun of Louis for forgetting where they parked, Louis fatally shoots her. Louis tells Ordell about Melanie. They then discover that most of the money is missing. When Louis recalls seeing Max at the shopping mall, an enraged Ordell kills Louis. Ordell tries to contact Max, but instead gets Winston, Max's business partner, who passes on the message.
Ordell instructs Max to tell Jackie that he will kill them both if she does not return the money, and that if she goes to the police, he will name her as an accessory. Max goes to the house where Ordell is staying, and tells him that Jackie, frightened, is waiting in Max's office with the money. Ordell holds Max at gunpoint as they enter his office. Jackie yells that Ordell has a gun. Nicolette, Dargus and Winston, hiding in the back, ambush him and shoot him dead. With Ordell, Louis, and Melanie dead, the charges against Jackie are dropped, and she plans a trip to Madrid. Max declines an invitation to join her. They kiss goodbye and he watches her drive away.
Cast
Production Development After completing Pulp Fiction (1994), Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary acquired the film rights to Elmore Leonard's novels Rum Punch, Freaky Deaky and Killshot. Tarantino initially planned to film either Freaky Deaky or Killshot and have another director make Rum Punch, but he changed his mind after re-reading Rum Punch, saying that he "fell in love" with the novel all over again.Jackie Brown: How It Went Down. Jackie Brown DVD Special Edition. Miramax Home Entertainment. 2002. Killshot was subsequently adapted into a film released in 2008, produced by Jackie Brown producer Lawrence Bender.
While adapting Rum Punch into a screenplay, Tarantino changed the ethnicity of the main character from White to Black, as well as renaming her from Burke to Brown, titling the screenplay Jackie Brown. Tarantino hesitated to discuss the changes with Leonard, finally speaking with Leonard as the film was about to start shooting. Leonard loved the screenplay, considering it the best of the twenty-six screen adaptations of his novels and short stories, and also stating that it was possibly the best screenplay he had ever read.
Tarantino's screenplay otherwise closely followed Leonard's novel, incorporating elements of Tarantino's trademark humor and pacing. The screenplay was also influenced by blaxploitation films, but Tarantino said Jackie Brown is not a blaxploitation film.
Jackie Brown alludes to Grier's career in many ways. The film's poster resembles those of Grier's films Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974) and includes quotes from both films. The typeface for the film's opening titles was also used for those of Foxy Brown; some of the background music is taken from these films, including four songs from Roy Ayers's original score for Coffy.
The film's opening sequence recreates that of The Graduate (1967), in which Dustin Hoffman passes wearily through Los Angeles International Airport past white tiles to a somber "The Sound of Silence" by Simon and Garfunkel. In Jackie Brown, Grier walks to a soaring soul music song, "Across 110th Street" by Bobby Womack, which is from the film Across 110th Street, from the blaxploitation genre, just like Foxy Brown and Coffy.
Casting Tarantino wanted Pam Grier to play the title character. She previously read for the Pulp Fiction character Jody, but Tarantino did not believe that audiences would find it plausible for Eric Stoltz to yell at her."Enhanced Trivia Track, ch. 6". Pulp Fiction DVD. Buena Vista Home Entertainment.
Grier did not expect Tarantino to contact her after the success of Pulp Fiction. When she showed up to read for Jackie Brown, Tarantino had posters of her films in his office. She asked if he had put them up because she was coming to read for his film, and he responded that he was actually planning to take them down before her audition, to avoid making it look like he wanted to impress her.
Several years after the release of the movie, Sylvester Stallone claimed that he turned down the role of Louis Gara. Tarantino considered Paul Newman, Gene Hackman and John Saxon for the role of Max Cherry, before casting Robert Forster.
Shooting The film was shot between May and August 1997, having a post-production period of just three months. During this time, Miramax were known for completing films in a short manner, often in time for the end of year awards season, with Scream 2 also having been released in December 1997 following a shooting period between June and August 1997. Shortly after completing Jackie Brown, Bridget Fonda dyed her hair brown and started working on the film Break Up, which Miramax produced as part of a joint venture with Avi Lerner's Nu Image/Millennium Films.
Out of Sight While Jackie Brown was in production, Universal Pictures was preparing to begin production on director Steven Soderbergh's 1998 film Out of Sight, an adaptation of Leonard's 1996 novel Out of Sight, which also features the character of Ray Nicolette, and waited to see whom Tarantino would cast as Nicolette for Jackie Brown. Michael Keaton was hesitant to take the part of Ray Nicolette, although Tarantino wanted him for it. Keaton subsequently agreed to play Nicolette again in Out of Sight, uncredited, appearing in one brief scene. Although the legal rights to the character were held by Tarantino and Miramax, as Jackie Brown had been produced first, Tarantino insisted that Miramax not charge Universal for using the character in Out of Sight.
Reception Critical response Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives it an approval rating of 88% based on 97 reviews and an average rating of 7.60/10. The site's consensus is: "Although somewhat lackadaisical in pace, Jackie Brown proves to be an effective star vehicle for Pam Grier while offering the usual Tarantino wit and charm." Metacritic gives the film a 64 out of 100, based on 23 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on a scale of A+ to F.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times rated the film four stars out of four, writing that "Tarantino leaves the hardest questions for last, hides his moves, conceals his strategies in plain view, and gives his characters dialogue that is alive, authentic and spontaneous". He also ranked the film as one of his favorites of 1997.
Movie critic Mark Kermode for BBC Radio 5 Live lists Jackie Brown as his favorite film by Quentin Tarantino. Samuel L. Jackson, who appears frequently in Tarantino's films, named his character of Ordell Robbie as one of his favorite roles.
Box office The film grossed $39.7million in the United States and Canada, and $35.1million in other territories, for a total gross of $74.7million, against a budget of $12million. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $9.3million, finishing fifth at the box office.
Controversy Jackie Brown has attracted criticism for its use of the racial slur "nigger", which is used 38 times, the most in any Tarantino film until Django Unchained (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015). During an interview with Manohla Dargis, Tarantino said, "The minute any word has that much power, as far as I'm concerned, everyone on the planet should scream it. No word deserves that much power."
The filmmaker Spike Lee criticized the film's use of the word and said, "I'm not against the word, and I use it, but not excessively. And some people speak that way. But, Quentin is infatuated with that word. What does he want to be madean honorary black man? And he uses it in all his pictures: Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs... I want Quentin to know that all African-Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick." Lee took his concerns to the film's producers, Harvey Weinstein and Lawrence Bender.