All Eyes on Jackie Brown.

I Love almost everything about Quentin Tarantino movies. Along with Tim Burton and Spike Lee, Tarantino is my favorite director. But what irks me most about his movies--rather, the receptions of his movies--is how little recognition and praise people give "Jackie Brown."

Tarantino is the best at reviving the careers of actors who seem to have taken up residence in the $5 DVD bin at Wal-Mart. He made John Travolta relevant again in 1994 in Pulp Fiction. He reminded people there was someone in the world actually named Uma in 2003's "Kill Bill." Tarantino brought Kurt Russell out of family-movie hell in 2007 and put him in the driver seat in "Grindhouse: Death Proof."

In 1997, it was Pam Grier's turn. Tarantino took one of the biggest risks of his career (in my opinion, his biggest risk was Death Proof. Too bad it didn't pay off.) when he made Jackie Brown, the film adaptation of Elmore Leonard's book Rum Punch, and cast black people (Grier and Samuel L. Jackson) in two of the film's lead roles.

Jackie (Grier) was as 44-year-old black flight attendant working in the shittiest airlines (her words, not mine) thanks to prior legal troubles. Making some extra money on the side, she brought in large sums of cash from Mexico to gun runner Ordell Robbie (Jackson). When Beaumont (Chris Tucker) snitches to save his own butt from jail time, Department of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents arrest Jackie and threaten her with with the same fate that Beaumont eluded.

What makes Jackie Brown, a movie mildly laced with Blaxploitation references, my second favorite movie from Tarantino, is the fact that this is the realest movie he's ever done. Kill Bill, Death Proof, and, yes, even Pulp Fiction required huge stretches of the imagination. But Jackie Brown, showed the viewer a real black woman, forced to work a horrible job just to keep her rent paid. Showed how scary it would be for someone her age to lose the best job she could manage to find in the only industry in which she has worked.

Although there is no fight scenes, car chases or face shooting, I was on the edge of my seat, hoping this downtrodden woman could actually charm, befriend and or deceive her blood-thirsty gangster boss and the law enforcement agents looking for a conviction.

My fears vanished when Jackie, intended to meet the same end as Beaumont(SPOILER ALERT: Ordell kills Beaumont), pressed the barrel of a stolen gun into Ordell's shaft and balls and bitterly whispered, "Take yo hands from around my throat...NIGGA!" I saw in one scene what made Pam Grier such a bad ass B during an entire decade. Jackie commanded the room. Grier commanded the scene. And from that moment, I knew that she could hold her own against zealous cops, Ordell, and Ordell's beach bunny girlfriend and ex-con accomplice.

But the best part of the movie was Jackie's relationship with Max Cherry (Robert Forster, another actor whose career was drastically revived by this movie), a bail bondsman tired of writing bonds and chasing bailed-out absconders. After bailing out Jackie, and subsequently having his gun stolen by her, Max and Jackie talk the morning after Ordell's visit. That scene is, in my opinion, the greatest scene in the movie. For five minutes, you see, hear, and experience how tired these two old people are and begin to see what each might be prepared to do to alleviate their fatigue. Romantic sparks are also ignited between the Max and Jackie, but you find yourself wonder if Jackie, proven to be great at playing people, is setting up Max for the okie-doke.

Free of Samurai movie references, guys with colorful names, and guy-on-guy ass raping, Jackie Brown is a Tarantino movie non-Tarantino junkies can get into. It's real, gritty, suspenseful, romantic, witty and a host of other adjectives. It might be a tad long, but your time will be well-spent. If not for the great actors involved (Grier, Forster, Jackson, Robert De Niro, Bridgette Fonda, Michael Keaton, and Tommy "Tiny" Lister a.k.a. Deebo), for the amazing soundtrack. Try not loving a movie with the music of Minnie Ripperton, The Delfonics, The Grassroots, Foxy Brown, and Bobby Womack and Johnny Cash playing in the background.

And try not loving a movie where Pam Grier yells, "SIT YO RAGGEDY ASS DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWA1T78WpI