Imaginatively dragging Elmore Leonard's bestseller Rum Punch into his own postmodern universe peppered with quirky dialogue and cinematic references, director Quentin Tarantino makes this re-energised crime thriller a homage to, and an updating of, 1970s pulp blaxploitation fiction. Black icon Pam Grier is great as the air hostess pressured into an entrapment scam after being arrested for cash smuggling, who decides to use her feminine wiles to outsmart everyone wanting to exploit or kill her. Tarantino draws maximum suspense from a superb cast that includes Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda, Robert Forster and Michael Keaton, and an array of visual techniques such as staging a key scene three times from three different points of view. Complementing this breathlessly exciting down-and-dirty crime drama is a fabulous array of funk classics.

Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to use Jackie to get to her boss, she hatches a plan — with help from a bail bondsman — to keep the money for herself.