Low down 'Jackie Brown': Tarantino's latest disappoints

REVIEW
	Jackie Brown At Showcase & State

If it looks like a Tarantino film, talks like a Tarantino film and is more than 2 1/2 hours, like a Tarantino film, then it's safe to assume that it is a Tarantino film.

And Quentin Tarantino's latest, "Jackie Brown," an ultra-cool, jive-talking crime comedy, is indeed a Tarantino film - too bad it's just not a good one.

Occupying your time much longer than it should, "Jackie Brown" clocks in at a life-threatening 154 minutes, one of many hallmarks that made Tarantino's previous two films successes; others include a great '70s soundtrack, a semi-intricate structure and engaging dialogue that sometimes veers off into quirky pop culture tangents.

But unlike "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction," "Jackie Brown" sets off on one too many tangents right from its sluggish opening, and then never quite sets a specific course for itself.

Is "Jackie Brown" a crime thriller? With a straightforward plot, based on Elmore Leonard's "Rum Punch," the film concerns down-and-out flight attendant Jackie Brown (Pam Grier) and her life running money to Mexico for gun-smuggler Ordell (Samuel L. Jackson).

When Jackie is apprehended by a hyper ATF agent (Michael Keaton) and $500,000 of Ordell's money comes into the picture, Jackie begins playing both sides of the law in order to snatch the money for herself. But this rickety shack of a plot cannot wit

Foxy Pam Grier is a brilliant Jackie Brown in the not-so-brilliant "Jackie Brown."

hstand the dull blows of Tarantino's pointless dialogue.

Or is the film a touching romance for the older generation? Jackie Brown, in her attempt to get rich quick, seeks help from her goodhearted bail-bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster) and gets unexpectedly close to the big lug.

Grier and Forster have great chemistry and offer up Oscar-worthy performances as hesitant lovers, but they'd have been better served as the main attraction in a 90-minute movie without the pesky "Pulp Fiction"-redux distractions - but no, Tarantino had to get medieval on our collective ass.

Or is the film a throwback to '70s blaxploitation films? Reviving Grier and Forster from the dead, the film has a distinctly Gordon Parks atmosphere; taking more than a few stylistic cues, the clever title sequence for example, from Grier's own "Foxy Brown" and the groundbreaking "Shaft" - films that defined a decade of action flicks.

But "Jackie Brown" is more interaction than action, which would be welcome if Tarantino would just stop making clever pop allusions and start making the worthwhile character study that Grier's performance promises.

Or is the film a quirky ensemble comedy? Heavily populated with the usual crop of comic wackos, Jackie Brown's life is complicated by characters ranging from Bridget Fonda's jaded beach bunny to Robert DeNiro's nearly wordless ex-con to a Supreme-loving lady called Simone. Her life also includes people waxing poetic on such subjects as marijuana, the Delfonics and AK-47s.

But all this hilarity just isn't funny, ill-fated for a film marketed as a comedy.

No one can blame Tarantino for attempting to cross genre boundaries (his attempt at heartfelt sentiment is even promising), but someone should have stopped "Jackie Brown" and frisked her at the border, detaining her for possession of mediocre entertainment with intent to inflict boredom.

Still, the well-cast and perfectly scored (featuring music from Johnny Cash to Foxy Brown) "Jackie Brown" isn't all bad, it just isn't at all good.

Wading through the bad and the ugly, the good can be found in a spectacular scene involving a scared Grier, brandishing a gun and desperately trying to look tough. Scenes like this are all -oo sparse in the meandering journey towards the elusive "good part" of "Jackie Brown," which arrives in the form of a three-perspective telling of the climactic money-exchange.

But in that inventive and thrilling sequence, the big Q.T. seems to be desperately remaking his best work, trying to recapture some of that cinematically creative violence- and humor-driven electricity that charged "Pulp Fiction."

Quentin, you've already made "Pulp Fiction," there's no need to make it again. As for you "Pulp" fans, don't be fooled. "Jackie Brown" may look and sound like vintage Tarantino, but at this disappointing spectacle you won't find shots in the heart and brains in the hair - just cramps in the butt.

01-08-98