Jackie Brown the movie is a masterpiece. This Tarantino film is nowhere close to your everyday crime drama. Quentin Tarantino is famous for his unpredictable and distinctive movies. Jackie Brown was his third film & it reflects his unique taste in directing. Jackie Brown, unlike Tarantino’s other movies, was an adaptation of the novel, Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard.
Synopsis
Jackie Brown the movie tells the story of a middle-aged woman who happens to be a flight attendant smuggling loads of cash across the border of Mexico. As a routine smuggler, she gets herself in trouble when the authorities discover her acts of crime.
The authorities convince her to be part of a sting operation and help them catch another big name in crime, Ordell Robbie. The sting operation requires Jackie to implicate Ordell in the money smuggling so the ATF can take him down. Jackie accepts the offer on the condition of getting free of all the charges if the plan goes well.
Ordell, on the other hand, has plans to smuggle more money than usual. This motivates Jackie to devise another plan of her own to hide all the information from the ATF & keep all the money to herself. Jackie successfully gets away with the money after bloodshed and a whole load of thrill. She decides to leave the country and travel to Madrid, Spain.
Four Unknown Facts About: Jackie Brown The Movie
- Tarantino was going to adapt another Elmore Leanord book
After the huge success of Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s production company purchased three Elmore Leanord novels: Rum Punch, Killshot and Freaky Deaky. His instincts told him that one of the books would make a great movie, but he didn’t exactly know which one. In one of the interviews, Tarantino said, “I was just getting ready to give Rum Punch to another director that I knew. But reading it again later that night made me fall in love with it the exact same way I did a couple of years before”.
- Tarantino thought Leonard would hate the changes he made to the film
Tarantino not only changed the title of the book from Rum Punch to Jackie Brown, but also made another significant change by changing the ethnicity of the main character, and also her last name from Burke to Brown. Even though Tarantino had all the rights to do whatever he wants to with the script, he still cared about Leonard’s thoughts on the changes.
Leonard would later tell him that he actually liked the changes and wasn’t dissatisfied with Tarantino’s work. In fact, he claimed it to be the best adaptation of his work.
- Pam Grier thought she was hired for a different role
When Grier first got the script by Tarantino, she misread the note attached to it and thought she was hired for the role of a side character, Melanie Ralston. She didn’t even think for a single moment that she has been acquired for the lead role in the film. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that she found out that her role in the movie is the titular role.
- Samuel Jackson read two novels of Elmore Leonard to prepare himself for the role of Ordell
Jackson is no stranger to playing badass roles in Quentin Tarantino films. He prepared himself for the role by reading two of Elmore Leonard’s novels that featured the character, Ordell, in Switch & Rum Punch. He played the role perfectly and was praised by Tarantino for his portrayal of Ordell Robbie, which was solely his idea.
Why You Should Watch Jackie Brown The Movie
- Perfect Casting of Tarantino
One of the first and foremost reasons to watch the movie is Pam Grier. Tarantino’s strengths lie in dialogue and plotting, and he is gifted in casting. Pam Grier is one of the examples of his perfect casting. Unlike her roles as Coffy and Foxy Brown, she excels as Jackie in this movie as she takes on both sides of the law to live her life the way she has dreamed of.
- Smooth & Aligned Soundtrack
Tarantino’s music choices are always on point, however, in Jackie Brown, he puts himself one step ahead by choosing The Delfonic’s sweet melancholy as the standout track. Other soundtracks in the movie switch between country music and funk, always aligned with the depth of a scene.