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I don’t generally like heist/swindle movies, but this Quentin Tarantino flick (his third, because he’s counting) based on a novel by Elmore Leonard got under my skin with its rich characters and dialogue. Pam Grier plays a flight attendant who smuggles gun money from Mexico to the States for a bad motherfucker played by, who else? Samuel L. Jackson. But when ATF agents (Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen) catch her in the act, she has to find a way to get them off her back without informing on Jackson and signing her death sentence. Enter Robert Forster, playing a bale bondsman Jackson uses to get his potential informants out of jail (and kill them before they turn). It’s middle-aged love at first sight when Forster meets Grier — but will he help her outwit the agents and the bad motherfucker?

Jackie Brown is viscerally and stylistically subdued compared to Pulp Fiction, a trait that may disappoint people expecting Tarantino to top his previous work (how the hell can you top Pulp Fiction, anyway?). Jackie is more laid back, less driven by plot, and more concerned with simply letting the audience chill with its characters — or as Tarantino says, it’s a ‘hang-out movie’. And what fun it is to hang out with these actors. It may be Pam Grier’s movie (and she’s very good in it), but Robert Forster’s smitten bale bondsman character is the glue that holds it all together — narratively and emotionally. Jackson is diabolically cool in a role that fits him like a glove. Robert DeNiro plays his subdued associate, a former jail mate who is slowly forced into vengeance mode by one of Jackson’s girlfriends, played by a bitchy, needling Bridget Fonda. The groovy retro-soundtrack (a Tarantino staple) doesn’t hurt either. With Chris Tucker and Sid Haig.

Oscar Nomination: Best Supporting Actor (Robert Forster)