People have to understand that when "Jackie Brown" FIRST came out, YOUNG people, especially, HATED it, for the most part and it got mixed reviews everywhere. The reason being that everyone was just so floored with the THRILLING aspects of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" that when "Jackie Brown" came along - a VERY slowly paced film about people in their middle age, confronting the end of their relevance to the world and navigating a world they'd grown cynical about and finding love in the end - only to understand that they couldn't be together and that it would never work - this was VERY different than his first two films and was much more FORMAL, in terms of its presentation and style. So it was a total surprise to a lot of people. I remember seeing it with an audience of young people like me and while I loved it, half of the audience was literally laughing at the "old people" in it and going "ew!" when they kissed - and you could literally hear GROANS from the entire audience near the end when it hadn't ended yet. So while "Jackie Brown", in RETROSPECT, has been reevaluated by a lot of critics and audiences as probably his greatest movie - ironically, for those VERY REASONS people didn't like it at the time - that it's the most HUMAN and grounded film he'd made (which had a lot to do with Elmore Leonard being the source of the story and not Tarantino, I mean, let's be honest) - at the TIME, it was a box office failure and had a very mixed critical reaction. So there's nothing these critics were saying that nobody else was. Tarantino has NEVER made another movie like "Jackie Brown" and I still maintain that it's his greatest piece of work. But in 1997, this was
I swear, I can (and do) spend hours listening to Tarantino talk about his thought process behind movies. He does such a good job explaining what it is that he finds interesting about the films he makes, and listening to his perspective is invaluable to me as someone trying to learn more about what makes movies tick.
Jackie Brown is Tarantino restrained, believe it or not, and the characters really stand out because of that. It’s no Pulp Fiction or Basterds or Dogs, but it’s his most underrated film by far.
The way he answers to the critic... I felt I went back to my naïf days at film school, remembering how Directors should be: real artists. That's the only key for a great motion picture. with all the pros and the cons that an artist brings on the table.
My dad and I went to see Jackie Brown together in the theater. I was 16 and he was in his mid-50s, so basically Max Cherry's age. We both loved the movie and loved every performance. I think a lot of people thought they were going to see "Pulp Fiction 2," but if you took it on its own terms, it was wonderful. The only thing that bothered me on the first screening was that I wasn't prepared for Sam Jackson to play the bad guy, and you don't realize that's the case early. He doesn't really become the bad guy until the final few scenes. So that threw me off.
I’m a big Tarantino fan, but I watched Jackie Brown fully for the first time the other day, for the first time since seeing it in theaters when it came out. I didn’t much like it back then because I was expecting more Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs out of it. People were still figuring out what Tarantino style was.
I love all of Tarantino's movies, but this one is my absolute favorite. This movie feels like a nice warm, comforting hug when i watch it no matter my mental mood or physical feeling. Jackie Brown, The Life Aquatic, The Thing and Event Horizon are the only movies i can watch no matter what.
As a kid watching Jackie Brown, I didn't get it. I didn't really "get" Pulp Fiction but it had enough spectacle that I could think that I got it. As an adult I can actually appreciate the greatness of Jackie Brown.
