YMMV / Jackie Brown

• Adaptation Displacement: Many don't realize that Jackie Brown is based off the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard.
• Award Snub:
  • Quentin Tarantino was upset that Pam Grier didn't receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She was, however, nominated for a Golden Globe.
  • As with Get Shorty, a film based on an Elmore Leonard book was denied an Adapted Screenplay nomination.
• Awesome Music: Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" (originally the theme from the film of the same name) during the opening credits, and heard again as Jackie drives away at the end of the film.
• Broken Base: In fan rankings, this film generally gets placed at the top of Quentin Tarantino's works or at the bottom. Because it's Tarantino's only straight adaptation, it's a departure from his standard style. It's also developed something of a reputation as "the Tarantino movie for people who don’t like Tarantino movies", with the likes of Mark Kermode holding it up as his best work.
• Ending Fatigue: It appears as though the swap in the clothing store will be the climax, as there's a significant amount of buildup towards it. It may then a surprise that the film drags on for twenty more minutes as Ordell keeps one-upping the protagonists.
• Girl-Show Ghetto: Laura Bogart noted that, coincidentally, the first Tarantino film with an unambiguous female lead (who's also African-American and over forty) is often placed at the bottom of his film lists by fans.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Max saying "you can't get new stuff on records"; in the 2010s, vinyl records experienced a significant comeback, with new music becoming easily available on vinyl.
  • Thanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this film contains a scene where the Vulture kills Nick Fury.
• Magnificent Bitch: Jackie Brown is a middle-aged flight attendant who makes a living by helping criminals smuggle in cash and more over the border. Caught by the ATF and used as a plant to help bring down gun runner Ordell Robbie, Jackie comes up with a scheme to win over her bail bondsman Max Cherry and steal Ordell's money. Reporting to the ATF that he is only moving $50,000, Jackie instead arranges things so that she can take the other $500,000 with plants and clever misdirection before setting Ordell up for death when he tries to come for his money in retribution.
• Memetic Mutation: Ordell's infamous description of the AK-47: "When you absolutely, positively got to kill every motherfucker in the room. Accept no substitutes!"
• Misaimed Fandom: In-Universe, Ordell brings up John Woo's The Killer, and incorrectly claims that "The Killer had a .45" as justification for the popularity of M1911s, going so far as to suggest that his customers "want to be The Killer." The actual movie The Killer is a full-blown Deconstruction of the Heroic Bloodshed genre. The hero, Ah Jong, hates being a contract killer, and looks forward to never having to take a life again. During one of his hits, he accidentally blinds an innocent bystander, which kicks off the plot of the film. To top it all off, the film has a tragic ending where Ah Jong dies before he can save Jenny's eyesight, while the other hero goes to prison for killing the villain. By all means, nobody should want to "be The Killer."
• Narm: Ordell shoots Louis, who looks down, looks over at Ordell, looks down again, and says "oh", only now realizing Ordell has shot him.
• One-Scene Wonder: Sid Haig as the judge.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The film attracted a lot of controversy, most notably from Spike Lee, for its heavy use of the N-word (thirty-eight times, if you're curious).
• Tough Act to Follow: This was Quentin Tarantino's next movie after Pulp Fiction and was heavily judged against that film. Although many fans place it as Tarantino's best film, it was met with much less general enthusiasm than Pulp Fiction.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Jackie is shown to be old-school and a little cash-strapped because she hasn't updated her musical collection from records to compact disks. Max asks why she hasn't jumped into the CD revolution. Nowadays, even CDs are old-fashioned. Max himself buys a cassette tape of the Delfonics and listens to it in his car. You can't even buy cars with cassette players anymore. Ironically, vinyl records made a comeback in the 2010s, making Jackie seem remarkably ahead of her time.
  • There's a Running Gag where Ordell insists that Melanie answer the house phone every time even though every call is for him. Nowadays, this argument wouldn't occur because everyone would call Ordell's cell phone directly.
  • Max gives his phone numbers without including the area code. In a few years after the film's release, dialing an area code would become necessary even when making local calls, so it's become customary to always include them.
  • One scene in which Jackie wears overalls pegs the film as being mid-90s, when overalls became a brief fashion fad. As with vinyl records, though, overalls made something of a comeback in the late 2010s and early 2020s, so it no longer seems so jarring.
• Values Resonance: The movie revolving around a woman of colour who's pushing fifty and portrayed as strong and capable, while also allowed to be vulnerable — all of these traits have helped the film age very well in terms of female representation.
• Vindicated by History: Jackie Brown is not nearly as successful or influential as Quentin Tarantino's previous hit, Pulp Fiction, but some critics continue to hold it up as Tarantino's best film.

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