Sensational performances and some niftily directed moments keep Tarantino from sinking this film in the quagmire of his own excess. Tarantino may be a brilliant writer but he shows here that his talents as director may take some time to catch up. To be fair, had he chopped out at least 45 minutes worth of slow and pointless scenes, he may have pulled off another Academy Award nomination, but instead he fell in love with his characters and script too much and decided to release this film badly needing tightening and editing. The film finally starts to heat up in the final third, where the real action starts happening. Robert Forster desevedly got the film's only Oscar nomination for his performance as the bailbondsman. Grier gives her best performance, with Keaton, Jackson, and Deniro delivering the quality you'd expect. Tarantino also shows flashes of one of his influences, Brian De Palma, when he employs his mentor's practice of split-screen action and revisiting the same scenes from different perspectives to give a complete story. But unlike De Palma, who tends to undo his movies through overdirecting and loving style over character, Tarantino almost undoes this film by underdirecting and loving his script more than his technique. Hopefully he learns this lesson before the studios crack down on him and he loses his ability to call his own shots. JACKIE BROWN remains a good film, but it's a disappointment because with a cast and writing this good, it shouldn't have been anything less than great.

Back to Qwipster's Movie Reviews