QUENTIN TARANTINO & PAM GRIER: TOGETHER AT LAST (PART FOUR)

In light of how dumb/terrible From Dusk 'Til Dawn and Four Rooms were, the news that Quentin Tarantino acquired the rights to a handful of Elmore Leonard novels was encouraging. Quentin credited Leonard with informing the Detroit parts of True Romance, and the influence didn't stop there. The two seemed like a natural pair: Quentin, the pasticheur/collagist director of two excellent crime pictures as well as his script for True Romance, and Elmore Leonard, the writer of many darkly humorous tales of wisecracking tough guys with violent streaks. As a big fan of both, I was quite excited.

It was thus a little confusing that, of the books he'd acquired, the one Quentin actually chose to direct was Rum Punch. Published in 1992, Rum Punch was a sequel to Leonard's 1978 The Switch (a book which, hilariously, Quentin was arrested for shoplifting as a teenager; bask in the levels, my friends), about a couple fuckups who botch a kidnapping. Rum Punch picks up when Louis, the dumber of the two fuckups, gets out of prison and finds the “smart” one, Ordell, running guns in Florida. The plot centers around airline stewardess Jackie Burke, written in a way that suggests Holly Hunter, who is smuggling cash for Ordell to make ends meet and decides to rip him off with the help of a friendly bail bondsman when the cops catch her. It's not Elmore Leonard's best work, but not his worst either. It was not immediately apparent why Quentin picked this book of all books to adapt, and even less so when he confusingly announced his adaptation was to be an homage to blaxploitation, reset in Los Angeles, with the title and heroine's name changed to Jackie Brown.

This was a bit of a test of faith in Quentin. I've long been a proponent of a deeply flawed theory that has its basis in music, that I call “third album syndrome,” which states that a band's third album is likely to be the one where if they fail, they will. The numerous exceptions to this theory notwithstanding, I nonetheless stick with it because while it may not be much of a theory, it's mine. The three examples I used most often while fretting stupidly about Jackie Brown:

The Doors—first two albums were awesome, third one started out as an album-length Morrison poem put to music, that was then scrapped and replaced with extemporized, self-indulgent crap with oodles of filler and a fucking terrible single that got them sued.

Pearl Jam—again, the first two albums were awesome, then suddenly they were like, “Waaaaa! Being a rock star is such a chore!” alienating the living shit out of civilized people, who value money, pussy, and adulation. Even then, it would have been okay for them to be such vaginas about being famous if their third record had been any good; in the most maddening turn of events of all, about half of it is fucking stunningly amazing, and the other half is not just crap, it's lazily conceived and executed crap. And the fucking CD case didn't fit in any known CD rack known to man. (Ed. Note: this last was annoying enough for the author to be half-pissed at Pearl Jam ever since, even though their fourth and sixth albums were both rather good).

Oasis—not only, as pasticheurs, a great segue back into talking about Quentin, but after two tremendously successful albums that had them not only the biggest band in England but getting there in the US (no mean feat for a UK band), they dropped a massively-hyped third album consisting almost entirely of meandering, self-indulgent seven-minute epics that left no doubt about it being made by, as Noel Gallagher once put it, “four gobshites with a bag of charlie.”

With Oasis' massive, gross self-destruction having just happened earlier the same year Jackie Brown came out, I was a little worried about Quentin. Much as I liked Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, From Dusk 'Til Dawn had definitely given weight to the possibility that Quentin could flame out. Still, I kept an open mind, hoped for the best, and went to see Jackie Brown when it came out.

I'll put it this way: I will never need to be convinced that Quentin, on some level or other, knows what the fuck he's doing ever again. From the opening shot of Pam Grier set to “Across 110th St.” Jackie Brown is just wonderful. It's full of the kind of touches one expects from Quentin, like Samuel L. as Ordell explaining the intricacies of the modern arms trade to Robert De Niro as Louis with the help of a video called “Chicks With Guns” to the long (amazing) dialogue scenes, to the multiple-perspective climactic heist sequence, but with something extra, that came as a huge pleasant surprise at the time: maturity.

Jackie Brown is a movie about grown-ups who act like grown-ups. The fact that that's as profound as it is in a mainstream American movie is kind of fucked up, but hey. Better that such movies be rare than not exist at all. Most impressively, considering that the lead is a woman in her 40s who falls for a man in his 50s while pulling a scam motivated by fear of growing old and alone while broke, is that the picture was written and directed by a 32-34 year old millionaire who hadn't heard the word “no” since George Bush, Sr. was president. Quentin really pulled off something special with Jackie Brown. More than any other picture he's ever made, it feels like a story about real people with real problems. When the only truly implausible thing in the whole movie is Samuel L. Jackson's hair, we're dealing with (wonderfully) atypical Quentin.

It's especially ironic, given my concerns about the attendant bombast, self-indulgence, and general obnoxiousness of third albums, that Quentin, in a position where he could literally do anything he wanted—no joke, Harvey Weinstein would have greenlit an O.J. Simpson vehicle if it was Quentin's followup to Pulp Fiction—and what he wanted to do was make a leisurely, well-observed story about a middle-aged woman who needs to prove to herself and the world that she's still got it. As third albums go, it's more like the Velvet Underground's than anything else: low-key, easy on the flash, and catchy as hell.

And now, Pam Grier. In a just universe, she would have been one of the biggest movie stars in the world for her entire career. She's absolutely stunning, and she can act. And, certainly, her work in the 70s would have guaranteed her icon status even without the late-career resurgence of which Jackie Brown was a huge part. But Pam Grier got into the movie business at a time when good roles for black actors in mainstream movies were about as frequent as solar eclipses, and good roles for black women were about as frequent as ice ages. Thus, she starred in exploitation pictures, some of which were good, some of which really, really sucked. Stars find their audience, though. To watch her in those 70s pictures was to love, admire, and respect her. As cult movie stars go, she's one of the finest to ever grace the screen.

Due to the industry's unfriendliness toward women, to say nothing of black women, Pam Grier spent the 80s and 90s toiling in obscurity—showing up on an episode of Miami Vice here, as Steven Seagal's partner who was so much more awesome than him it was like she showed up to the wrong movie there—until she started getting a bunch of roles in pictures like Mars Attacks! and Original Gangstas (Ed. Note: the term, while not coined for Pam Grier, easily could have been). And then Quentin said, “Hi, Ms. Grier. I'm a really big fan of yours. Would you please be in my movie?”

Quentin's casting of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction had gotten a lot of attention because, as is very easy to forget now that he's sort of annoying and we'd like to be rid of him, his career was fucking dead in the early 90s. John Travolta being in a hit movie and being really good was shocking at the time. Emboldened by this—one pictures him walking around with a giant joint in his mouth bellowing something incoherent about Lazarus—Quentin decided to pull the same trick in Jackie Brown, giving the lead to another of the most dearly beloved movie stars of his youth. And it worked just as well. Pam Grier in Jackie Brown is probably the best performance by a woman in a mainstream American movie that whole decade. If not, she's damn close. Don't get me started about the fucking Oscars that year; they should have stopped handing them out after that bullshit Helen Hunt win (and bullshit Pam non-nomination).

Not content to stop there, Quentin went even more obscure for his male lead. Robert Forster had been in Reflections in a Golden Eye and Medium Cool—both of which were good but not hugely popular, not to mention thirty years old when Jackie Brown dropped—and also, interestingly, Original Gangstas with the above-mentioned Ms. Grier. He was no stranger to Quentin, though. Quentin knew how good Robert Forster was going to be and thus was intractable. Robert Forster was going to be the lead and that was that. Probably the best example of Quentin's confidence in his casting instincts is the fact that Robert De Niro, Bobbert the Maginficent Himself, read the script and said, “Hey, kid. I want to play the lead in your next picture” (add more mumbling and emotional remoteness for full effect) but Quentin said “Nope. Some guy you've never heard of is playing that part. You can play Samuel L.'s retard sidekick if you like, though.” And probably the best example of how huge Quentin was in the mid-90s was that Bobbert didn't just reflexively tell Quentin to go fuck himself; not only that, but he took the part as Samuel L.'s retard sidekick.

Robert Forster as Max Cherry is one of the most singular performances I've ever seen. It's a fairly well-written character, but atypically for a Quentin character Max Cherry says as much with his silence as with his words. He's a genuinely good guy who does his job, believes in right and wrong (and doesn't necessarily equate those with legal and illegal, even though he's not a lawbreaker), and maintains like a goddamn champion when the shit goes down. That scene at the end when Samuel L.'s holding him at gunpoint in the car, and the Delfonics are on, and Samuel L. goes, “You like the Delfonics?” and Robert Forster takes that beat before saying, flatly, “They're pretty good” just fucking rules. It's two lines, but they have a whole conversation. Because Samuel L. knows, generalization though it may be, no white guy Robert Forster's age listens to the Delfonics, and the fact that he has the tape on in his car is a clear indication that he's thrown in with Jackie (who, as a black woman who was young in the 70s, falls much more comfortably into the Delfonics' demographic). And Robert Forster, fully grasping the implication of what's being said, manages to say “Yes, I bought this tape because Jackie was playing the record at her place. This music reminds me of her, and I love it because I love her.” All in one fucking sentence. AND he manages to tell Samuel L. to go fuck himself. IN ONE FUCKING SENTENCE. All with timing, inflection, and cadence. That shit is fierce.

As for Samuel L., I have to confess I'm a little divided. Part of it's Quentin's fault (after all, Samuel L. didn't write the script where his character breaks the Guinness World Record for n-bombs in a movie), but the goofy hair is Samuel L.'s fault, as is this: I've written, directed, and acted, and have been on all sides of the writer/actor/director conversation about script rewrites, and when you're working on a new script (be it original or an adaptation), they're quite common, and actors can say to a director “Hey, this text feels awkward.” This is something actors can and should do. It's then on the writer and/or director to determine whether this is something the actor needs to work past, or whether they can change the line. If a line gets through, the actor, writer, and director share responsibility if it sucks. Or seems racist.

That being said, for most of this picture, Samuel L. is fucking rad, in the way only Samuel L. can be fucking rad. The scene near the beginning where he manipulates a stoned Chris Tucker—and incidentally, Chris Tucker is fucking out of his mind good in that scene—into the trunk of his car is one of my favorite movie scenes ever. The dialogue is nonpareil, both Samuel L. and Chris Tucker are great, and Quentin's camera is elegant and unobtrusive (Ed. Note: yes, the words “Quentin Tarantino,” “elegant,” and “unobtrusive” were used in the same sentence. Simmer down, kids). That long crane shot at the end when Samuel L. drives over into the lot, opens up the trunk and shoots a still-yapping Chris Tucker twice is like . . . holy shit. Cinema for the fucking win.

Like all Quentin movies, the supporting cast is universally tremendous as well. It may not look like Bobbert's doing anything (and fuck knows I've had dozens of conversations with people who think he sucks in this) but bear in mind he's playing an inarticulate, borderline retarded, poorly socialized fuckup. You know how you fuck a character like that up? Overdoing it. You know what works as a template onto which an audience can project what they will from the context of the overall piece? Stillness and silence. Now, I ain't saying this is his finest work or anything, but Bobbert holds it down. And I'd rather see Bobbert hold it down subtly in a good movie than mug like a fucko in Meet the Parents 4.

Bridget Fonda, as Bobbert's weed-smoking buddy (and for three many-splendored mostly off-screen minutes, sex partner), catches a bit of shit from people as well for being annoying. But, again, the character is really stupid and way farther into her 30s than anyone who sits around smoking weed all day should be. If you do a good job playing an annoying dipshit, you're going to look like an annoying dipshit, that's just how it goes. It's incumbent on the audience to discern whether the actor is supposed to be an annoying dipshit. And let me tell you, ladies, I can discern with the best of them. Zing! Try the veal.

Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen, as the cops who bust Jackie, make a good team. Michael Keaton, in particular, is summed up perfectly by a Max Cherry line: “He's just a young guy havin' fun bein' a cop.” Because everything Robert Forster does as Max Cherry is perfect. Michael Bowen does a particularly impressive job considering he's probably the least famous person in the whole movie (though that would change after he was the genius kid's asshole dad in Magnolia and, more importantly, Buck who came to fuck in Kill Bill).

One thing that helps lend a certain reality to the proceedings—dealing as the story does with gun dealers, feds, smuggling, and so forth—is the fact that the sum of money (a half million bucks) Pam Grier plots to rip off from Samuel L. is, while a fuckton of money, an amount of money that would both motivate a normal person to do extraordinary thing and is actually an amount of money a normal person could, given the right circumstances, steal. Where something like The Usual Suspects benefited from the amount of money they were trying to rip off being so mind-boggling ($91 mil) because it was about a mythic villain, Jackie Brown is a more down-to-earth affair. Thirteen years later I'm still amazed that Quentin's first “I can do whatever the fuck I want” movie was so restrained, disciplined, and painstakingly of this world (well, Los Angeles, but still).

The indulgences and missteps in Jackie Brown are so small and periodic as to be almost invisible. True, it is two and a half hours long and deliberately paced, but it's very much a movie that wants to sit down and smoke a bowl with you, in the best sense of the concept. Its joys are not lost on those unfamiliar with the joys of smoking a leisurely afternoon bowl, though that is just about the only experiential analogue to Jackie Brown. Also, much like the proverbial good weed-smoking experience, awesome tunes are in abundance. Everything on the soundtrack is absolutely terrific, and only one needle-drop is out of place in the movie itself: the scene when Samuel L. is sitting in his car thinking about killing Robert Forster while listening to “Tennessee Stud” by Johnny Cash. First of all, no, Samuel L. is not listening to that song while sitting in his car thinking on a murder. Sorry, Quentin. Second, it's a great song but it's just about the only thing on the soundtrack that isn't 70s soul, so it sticks out like a sore thumb and makes what should be an ominous couple of seconds randomly funny when it shouldn't be. Third, if Samuel L. is getting ready to light somebody up, and he's in his car listening to tunes and he wants to hear some acoustic guitars, what's wrong with Leadbelly? I know I'm splitting hairs and Monday morning quarterbacking, and it really isn't that big a deal, but that's my point. Looking for flaws in Jackie Brown, your list is going to be short and make you look like a dickhead.

When it came out, I remember a lot of people walking around whining “well, it's no Pulp Fiction.” No shit, straw man, of course it's not Pulp Fiction, that's what's so impressive about it. Quentin made about as good a followup as he possibly could have: just similar enough that it's recognizably Quentin but just different enough that he showed the ability to grow (and not repeat himself). It's the most rewatchable picture he's ever made, in spite of its length, and anything that keeps Pam Grier working is a noble enterprise. Also, let us not ignore the fact that Quentin resisted the urge to act in it; who the fuck would he have played? Michael Bowen's part? How much would that have sucked? (Quentin does the voice of Pam Grier's answering machine, but that's it, and it's kind of funny).

But because a lot of critics had already decided that nothing could top Pulp Fiction, and because it didn't do Pulp Fiction box office, the meme took hold that Jackie Brown was a borderline failure. Nothing could be more exasperating to someone who actually saw the fucking movie, but with the inevitability of the critical reaction and audiences desperately wanting to seem too cool to like Quentin anymore, it really couldn't have happened any other way. Shame that Jackie Brown was the movie that had to take the hit, and that it's been taking furious amounts of effort on the part of my fellow nerds and I to make sure that Jackie Brown gets its just due as one of the best movies of the 90s.

In our next installment we'll see Quentin, having bought the bullshit lie that Jackie Brown didn't work, trying to figure out what to do next. The answer: Broadway, a lot of weed, and a four-hour movie where Uma Thurman cuts people up with swords. Oh, Quentin . . . what the fuck? To find out what the fuck, tune in for PART FIVE!