I think, on every single capacity Jackie Brown is a flawless movie, and it is also one of my favorites (we're talking top 5)
First off, the realism of lower income Los Angeles in the 1990s. Much of the movie just emphasizes the environments of Compton, LA County jails, and the rest of the corruption and poverty of the time period.
Every actor is on their toes, and this was Tarantino at his best with his technique:
-He loved to utilize "has been" actors and actresses (given the pop culture of the time). Harvey Keitel hadn't been in anything serious for 10 years when he did Resevoir Dogs. John Travolta as well was a shadow before Pulp Fiction. Tarantino in this film chose several. First he uses Pam Grier, who up to that point was last known in the 1970s Blaxploitation films like Foxy Brown and Coffy, embodied as the archetypical black female badass. Then there's Robert Forester, who was well established in the 1960s and 1970s in films like The Great Escape.
-But what he does is he develops their characters so much more than he does in Kill Bill. Jackie Brown (Pam Greir) is a badass now, but such a vulnerable hardened badass. She portrays a woman who is very hardened because she's had to do things for people who have taken advantage of her. She asks Forester's character (Max Cherry) at one point "Max, how do you feel about getting old?" that leads to a discussion where she very abruptly summs her character up so well. Even better, they expose both sides, the vulnerable AND the confidence of a sassy ass woman. It's so great because in the beginning of the film when she's sent to prison and harshly interrogated by ATF agents, it's simultaneously comical but tragic. She, in many ways, is a feminist streak throughout the entire plot.
But hot off of Pulp Fiction this floundered in the perfection laid before it. However, this was the role that I've always loved more for Samuel L. Jackson. He takes the absurd over-the-top badass and delegitimizes him. He's not a man of integrity. He's a man pushed to success (however illegal it may be) to the point that he will not stop to take what is his, but he does with a hysterical consistence of great lines throughout the movie.
Why I love this movie more than most though is that the scene is so slick. It's very rooted in a soul and pulse, which is supplemented with a great soundtrack of fantastic funk and soul that flew out of the obscurity that was the 1970s. The first scene is a title card track simply flowing of a side profile of the main character, Jackie Brown, walking through an airport as a stewardess to the tune of "Across 110th Street" Just watch:
Tarantino definitely tries to quote a different genre of film everytime he makes another one (Resevoir Dogs was his crime sleuth drama, Inglorious Basterds was his historic drama, Kill Bill was his spaghetti-western/action film/ninja flic).
This was his film noir AND his blaxploitation film. Everything is built is suspense between very few characters and focuses nearly all attention on directing a few people. All with a lot of 70s r&b, and yet this movie is so fucking built around 90s L.A., as there's a very memorable scene with Samuel L. Jackson listening to a very 90s Johnny Cash song ("The Tennessee Stud" from American Recordings).
Finally my two favorite things put very simply:
-This movie has almost no violence, and absolutely no gore or blood, which is a huge shock.
-Robert De Niro is in this movie, and he plays almost no real part except an incompetent stoolie. Best tertiary character I've ever seen, except for the butler from Boardwalk Empire.
If you have 10 minutes, I would encourage you to sit and watch these two scenes in this clip:
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