Accept No Substitutes, by Tyler Smith

There’s no question that Quentin Tarantino is a talented writer and director. However, as his half of Grindhouse shows us, when accountable only to oneself, sometimes a director can put out a grating, self-indulgent work. I think that what Tarantino needs right now is to bring his directorial flair to someone else’s work.

Want proof? Just watch his 1997 film, Jackie Brown.

Based on the book “Rum Punch” by the brilliant Elmore Leonard, Jackie Brown is a perfect melding of minds. In book form, the story of a middle-aged stewardess and her part in a gun-smuggling ring is interesting, but a bit sprawling. What it needs is somebody to trim the fat and spice it up. Enter Tarantino, who makes drastic improvements, such as changing the main character’s name and race, giving the story an element the book is lacking.

The beauty of it is that, with his love of Elmore Leonard, Tarantino is reluctant to change too much, and is committed to staying true to the down-to-earth nature of the story. As we can see in his later efforts, Tarantino is too prone to go off on directorial flights of fancy. But, luckily, Leonard’s source material acts as a very solid anchor keeping his feet firmly planted on the ground.

The result is a film about several characters who, colorful though they may be, still deal with the same concerns we all do. Amidst a quirky story of schemes and double-crosses, we find an interesting meditation on aging, loneliness, and fresh starts. As usual, Tarantino shows that his ability to cast the right actors in the right roles is one of his most valuable assets.

In the role of Jackie, a middle-aged stewardess whose life, it seems, has passed her by, Tarantino casts Pam Grier, a star of ’70s blaxploitation films whose career fizzled in the eighties. Grier gives a performance that is simultaneously shrewd and heart-breaking. I’ve always been a big fan of characters that feel lived-in, as though their lives have been going on long before this movie started, and will continue after it’s over. Jackie Brown is just such a character, and much of that should be credited to the weight that Grier brings. After all, when it comes right down to it, this may be a clever caper film, but Jackie is just a poor, black, divorced stewardess working for a Mexican airline. Even as she’s maneuvering between the cops and the crooks, this simple fact never leaves her mind.

The other pivotal role (and quite possibly one of my favorite performances of all time) is Max Cherry, a bail bondsman whose life story is similar to Jackie’s. A streetwise man who finds himself reluctantly drawn into the caper, Max only puts up with these eccentric, threatening characters because he has found a possible end to his loneliness. In Jackie, he finds a kindred spirit; a person too old and too tired to entertain the notion of love. Played with a seen-it-all, no-bullshit attitude by Robert Forster, Max is an unlikely hero in the midst of a conventional genre film. Forster’s frank performance embodies my definition of great acting. He never forces the emotion, he never tries to impress us. He just is Max Cherry, no more, no less. His inclusion in the Best Supporting Actor category that year is one of the few moments when I was pleasantly surprised by the Academy.

The other performances are strong, as well, with Samuel L. Jackson leading the pack. Jackson has an interesting challenge in this role; he has to navigate between funny and lethal, sometimes within a single scene, and he pulls it off perfectly. Bridget Fonda and Robert DeNiro also turn in great work.

You may notice that I’m talking all about the character and acting, and very little about the story, which is a little strange when discussing a caper film. But, ultimately, as is often the case with these types of films, the specifics of the plot, while very clever, are not nearly as important as the impact they have on the characters involved.

The center of Jackie Brown is not the half-million dollars that everybody’s scrambling to get. The core of the film is two lonely people who have been presented with a second chance at life. They may fail, but, as Jackie herself says, “I’m not in jail, and at least I tried.”