One of the best Elmore Leonard adaptations: Jackie Brown

Inspired by an ongoing online discussion with two WOHS friends, which has led us to talk about whether to see Django Unchained, last night I watched an early Quentin Tarantino film much touted by AW, Jackie Brown, from 1997, I think - with Pam Grier in title role, Samuel L. Jackson as the street thug gun runner, and Robert de Niro giving an excellent performance as Jackson's recently sprung sidekick (also Robert Forster, whom I don't really know, in a fine turn as a bail bondsman whom Grier draws into a weird double-crossing scheme). All you really need to know is that this is an Elmore Leonard-based project (based on his novel Rum Punch), and it has all of the Leaonard traits and quirks, for better or worse: strong over-the-top nearly cartoonish characters, probably accurate knowledge of the argot and lingo of criminals, episodic narrative development, and plot with lots of twists and kinks that ultimately leaves you thinking: huh? Tarantino seems to stay close to the source, and the movie logs in at well over 2 hours, which is probably too long for a crime movie that really doesn't move much beyond the conventions of the genre but is maybe necessary because of the plot complexity: any editing would either jettison key plot elements of leave us with nothing but plot. And what does make the movie are some of the great scenes involving Jackson: his visits to the bail bondsman's office, smoking away, a bag of cash at the ready; his visit to an accomplice who's turned; his drinking scene with De Niro as they discuss De Niro's fling with Jackson's squeeze (Bridget Fonda). Obviously QT is known for the extreme violence in his films, but though JB is loaded with menace and nuance, it's not graphically violent: there are 4 shooting deaths, but each is quite sudden and shown by indirection. I really question with Jackson would have walked into the darkened bondsman's office late at night in the final sequence - hasn't he seen Seven Samurai? Obviously QT has - but on the whole it's a very entertaining movie that does not feel overly long: doesn't have the depth and scope or the unique qualities of QT's early Reservoir Dogs, but it's as good an Elmore Leonard adaptation as we're likely to see. Maybe QT should try another one?