Jackie Brown

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General		Extras
Category	Thriller	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - Dolby Digital Egypt
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	148:12 minutes (not 154 as per cover)	Other Extras	Cast Biographies Menu Animation & Sound
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (94:44)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	4	Director	Quentin Tarantino
Studio Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Pam Grier Samuel L. Jackson Robert Forster Bridget Fonda Michael Keaton Robert De Niro
RRP	$34.95	Music

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16x9 Enhancement	Yes	Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (MPEG 2.0 )
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes
Subtitles	None	Smoking	Yes

    Jackie Brown is 44, and a lowly-paid airline stewardess for a Mexican airline. She is also a money courier for a small arms dealer by the unlikely name of Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson). Jackie is busted for carrying $50,000 in cash into the country by a miscast Michael Keaton as an ATF officer, and she agrees to assist the police with their efforts to bust Ordell. At least that what she says to them. You see, Ordell has $500,000 stashed away in Mexico, and Jackie has a plan which would see her pocket the cash, and escape from her current life, with the help of Max Cherry (Robert Forster). But will the audacious plan work out?

    Jackie Brown is a film which grew on me as it went on. Initially, I was very bored and I thought there was too much of the characters sitting around aimlessly chatting and not enough advancement of the plot, but things picked up in the latter half of the movie. This is helped immensely by the very strong Pam Grier as Jackie Brown, who manages to garner a great deal of sympathy towards her cause, even though technically she is the villain of the piece.

    Jackie Brown also has several trademark tools of the Quentin Tarantino school of filmmaking; in particular one sequence is shown three times, from three different perspectives, a favourite technique of his.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is clear and sharp. Shadow detail was variable, and ranged from very good to virtually no detail at all. Because of the variability, I concluded that this was the way the film was shot. There was no low level noise.

    The colours were vividly rendered, with very strong reds in particular standing out. There was no colour bleeding, and once again, I conclude that this is the way the film was shot.

    There were no MPEG artefacts. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some mild aliasing variably thoughout the movie, though this was never particularly intrusive. Film artefacts were scattered throughout the transfer - more so than I am used to seeing with contemporary transfers, but nonetheless not particularly distracting.

    This transfer is presented on an RSDL disc, with the layer change at 94:44, which is at the transition between Chapters 19 and 20. Unlike the completely seamless layer change on Blade, this is the worst layer change I have seen to date, even worse than the very bad layer change on Donnie Brasco. The total time to negotiate the layer change is approximately 6 seconds, with a fade to black preceding the layer change, the layer change itself, and then a fade up from black. It is very disruptive when it occurs, and is a major disappointment. Nonetheless, it is clearly better than having to get up and turn the disc over.

    The running time of this movie is 148:12 minutes, not 154 minutes as claimed on the packaging.

Audio

    The dialogue was a little hard to hear at times, which is as much the fault of the accents and the style of dialogue, but was usually easy to make out.

    There were scattered audio sync problems here and there, which I attributed to sloppy ADR work. In particular, between 72:10-73:04, Samuel L. Jackson's dialogue is out of sync even though Robert De Niro's dialogue in the same scene is in sync. Also, Chapter 24 is out of sync, which is a sequence where Jackie Brown is being interrogated by Michael Keaton.

    The music consisted of a number of great funk tunes which added superbly to the overall atmosphere of the movie. Indeed, the only song which was not in this mold was the first song over the end credits, which sounded very Pulp Fictionesque, and sounded very out of place.

    The surround channels had music present in them, and very little else. The soundstage of this movie was basically up front, with little opportunity for envelopment.

    The subwoofer carried the bottom end of the music and the occasional gunshot but was otherwise silent.

What's Missing / What's Extra

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Cast Biographies

    The video quality is pretty good.

    The audio quality is unremarkable.

    The extras are acceptable.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
26th June 1999