Quentin Tarantino’s Forgotten R-Rated Thriller Is Actually His Most Memorable

By TeeJay Small
| Published 6 seconds ago

As a budding film nerd in the late aughts to the early 2010s, no filmmaker fascinated me more than Quentin Tarantino. His use of over-the-top violence, foul language, and intricate storylines provided enough style, substance, and rule-breaking energy to make me seek out each and every one of his works. By the time Netflix started dominating movie-watching culture, I had already binged nearly every Tarantino flick via On Demand, Blockbuster video rental, or Playstation Store digital purchase.

While I enjoyed each of these films, one particular entrant into the Tarantino pantheon left me with more questions than answers. The film in question: 1997’s Jackie Brown. The movie is considered the third Quentin Tarantino project, since the filmmaker has a strange obsession with numbering his films and retiring when he gets to 10. It’s an excellent crime drama with a few humorous elements, and lots of the usual suspects for a Tarantino picture. Still, many elements of the film stand out like a sore thumb when compared to his other creations.

A Rare Tarantino Adaptation

For starters, Jackie Brown is based on a 1992 novel called Rum Punch. Tarantino rarely releases adaptations of existing works. When he does, he usually changes the source material so much that it becomes something new entirely. We’re talking about a guy who made a World War 2 movie that concluded with Hitler getting turned into Swiss cheese by a pair of machine gun-wielding American soldiers. In the case of Jackie Brown though, the only notable difference is the swapping of the title character’s race.

Jackie Brown is also a lot more subdued than other movies in the Tarantinoverse. Sure, there are guns, drugs, and bags of money changing hands, but there’s something much more subtle about the ways that the characters interact with each other. Samuel L. Jackson‘s Ordell seems to be a de facto guardian for a young woman, but hardly bats an eye when she’s killed off simply for being a nuisance. Robert De Niro also plays his role in a very stripped back, muted sort of way, free of the usual top-of-the-lung screaming that you’d find in a “best acting compilation” on YouTube.

Powerhouse Protagonist

One of the most jarring instances of restraint is the climax of Robert Forster’s growing attraction to Pam Grier’s title character. After a whole movie of flirting, longing, and stolen glances, the pair share a single peck on the lips and part ways, presumably never to see each other again. It’s raw, it’s genuine, and it’s distinctly unlike Quentin Tarantino.

The film doesn’t have buckets of blood raining from the ceiling like The Hateful Eight. It doesn’t feature a historical element that splits the narrative from our real world like Once Upon a Time In Hollywood. It does contain dozens of uses of the N word, a favorite for Quentin Tarantino, though even that is handled more tastefully than the director’s extremely awkward cameo in Pulp Fiction.

Not Your Typical Tarantino

None of this is to say that Jackie Brown is a bad movie. On the contrary, it’s actually fantastic, as long as you don’t go in expecting the usual over-the-top Tarantino insanity. I might have lamented how the shot composition feels dated in my teenage years, but today I can respect the film for creating a very distinct energy, which I haven’t seen captured anywhere else.

If you haven’t had the chance to see Jackie Brown just yet, now might be the perfect time, since it’s currently streaming for free on Plex. I wouldn’t necessarily place it among Tarantino’s greatest works like Inglourious Basterds or Django Unchained, but it has a very distinct identity that makes it well worth the price of admission. If you’re interested in getting into Tarantino’s back catalogue and don’t know where to start, this movie might actually introduce you to a few of his go-to tricks without wearing them out all at once.