Why didn't Max go with Jackie to Spain?
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moosefeathers — 16 years ago(April 01, 2010 05:44 AM)
Did you see the way he stares at her when she drives away? He knows he's just made a huge mistake
yes. if he could have gotten off the phone faster, he might have caught her. and she, about to cry singing the song. ARGGGHHHH!! -
vickysounusual — 15 years ago(May 31, 2010 06:29 PM)
loved, the loved the ending because it frustrated the romantic side of me but totally nailed the realist in me. i think he's too set in his ways to change, that quitting was just talk. i think he was scared of jackie. and i think he knows he made a huge mistake. the scene with his back to the camera sinking in defeat was terrific. again, a really mature movie about mature adults.
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PussyCrusher_Principal — 15 years ago(July 11, 2010 05:15 PM)
being "set in their ways" is a huge part of itthey are not young people. He has a business. I was very realistic in that respect. When we "real" people start growing real balls and throwing caution to the wind and actually trying to live the life we REALLY want when an opportunity arises, instead of accepting what we are handed, films will reflect that change
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scott-1441 — 15 years ago(July 18, 2010 03:39 AM)
I believe the answer to this question lies in the song that plays at the end that Jackie Brown sings along to.
All Tarantino movies have cool music, and the music fits the mood of the scene. However, in Jackie Brown, the topic of the song seems to relate directly to the characters as well.
The key lyrics here are: "doing whatever I had to do to survive. I'm not saying what I did was alright. You don't know what you'll do until you're put under pressure, across 110th Street is a hell of a tester."
Max and Jackie enjoyed their partnership and had fallen in love, but in the end, they were from two different worlds. Jackie was from "Across 110th Street." What she had to do to survive was coldly calculate the death of a man to steal his $500K and beat the rap free and clear. Max's morals were loose enough to bail out criminals ("Whatever you're into, you seem to be getting away with it, so more power to you"), but he wasn't a criminal himself - he's really part of the law, the policeman's world.
In the end scene, out of focus, Max breaks down, covers his face with his hand and cries, because he knew deep down he couldn't be with a woman who could plot someone's death. Jackie realizes the same thing as she drives away and sings along with the lyrics. They're from different sides of "110th Street." -
scifi75 — 15 years ago(December 30, 2010 08:07 PM)
Good analysis with the music. I will have to agree.
I also got the impression that, at 56, he got stuck in the rut that was his life. He was bored of his business to the point that he would go out for a few hours to watch a movie by himself and get something to eat. However, this routine and his job were his life and a comfortable routine. It was beyond his thinking to give it all up to pursue a woman whose lifestyle was totally different than his own.
Only until Jackie drives away does he realize that he blew his last chance at something big. -
mpeachhead — 15 years ago(February 23, 2011 05:28 AM)
The ending is deliberately ambiguous though, both in the novel and in the film. There is a possibility that Max will go after her, particulary after the line where he asks for 30 minutes. He might be about to head to the airport. Also, how long is she going to stay in Spain? The viewer feels like they really had something going. They are still free to pursue it.
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orchidclub — 14 years ago(October 07, 2011 08:06 PM)
This is a beautiful response, and I totally agree with you. BUT I also think the ending is open, and what the other person above said, about Max being able to track Jackie down because of his skills and Jackie's smile being an indication that she knows he will do so, is just as plausible. However, I prefer to think they didn't end up together and Jackie's smile is a bittersweet one.
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njiuma — 13 years ago(May 04, 2012 09:16 PM)
"In the end scene, out of focus, Max breaks down, covers his face with his hand and cries, because he knew deep down he couldn't be with a woman who could plot someone's death. Jackie realizes the same thing as she drives away and sings along with the lyrics. They're from different sides of "110th Street."
- excellent analysis. i would add, though, that she had a legitimate "score to settle" with Ordell because cocaine was stashed with the money that wasn't hers, she could have gone to jail again, he was planning to kill her in the beginning of the story, so his death was incidental as he could have survived and been put in jail instead.
Max knew all of this, he is street smart. But Max could also be counted wise, as it's one thing to run a legitimate business, take a little detour and make $50,000 (his 10% fee for the $500,000) versus throwing a solid future away for what could be a short lived run. After all, it will still be tough for Jackie to live on $450,000 for the rest of her life, even if she is frugal. She could live another 40 years on only about $10,000/year.
Max knows this too.
So, it is supremely poignant that he wants to go with her, as any of us would, but he looks into his future and realizes that it is safer for him, and his retirement, to stay rather than leave.
Often the practical overrides the impulsive, as does the expedient.
Of course, together they surely have more than $500,000 between them, maybe even a million or more but it is still riskier to run off with someone you barely know than stay home and make a good living.
- excellent analysis. i would add, though, that she had a legitimate "score to settle" with Ordell because cocaine was stashed with the money that wasn't hers, she could have gone to jail again, he was planning to kill her in the beginning of the story, so his death was incidental as he could have survived and been put in jail instead.
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trelaina — 15 years ago(March 09, 2011 09:26 AM)
I've always thought that Max didn't believe Jackie felt as strongly about him as he did her. I got the impression that she asked him along because she genuinely cared for him and felt like she owed himbut that Max knew it ultimately wouldn't work out between them.
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robhiphop — 15 years ago(March 14, 2011 12:59 AM)
Yep, you pretty much hit the nail on the head there.
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drk1996 — 14 years ago(April 30, 2011 12:19 AM)
In plain spoken English: He doesn't trust her. He may have fallen in love with her and would love to spend the rest of his life with her, but he plain doesn't trust her. He said in the movie he was a "little bit" afraid of her. In the end, his heart says go with her, but his brain says NO!!! His brain won out in the end.
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gregmays — 14 years ago(May 06, 2011 11:17 PM)
In his heart of hearts, he's a cop. She's a criminal. It's an insurmountable divide. Max was smart enough, or experienced enough, to know better.
Sometimes the baggage we enter a relationship with, will always be there as an obstacle.
I credit Max for understanding that. -
deck007-1 — 14 years ago(May 07, 2011 06:49 AM)
I just saw this movie. And this is the question I was asking myself.so I came here to see if it was brought up& obviously it was because many people were thinking about it.
I have also read the replies to this thread & thought many of them were very interesting & insightful. Obviously, the bottom line why he didn't go is Tarantino's screenplay had him staying.
My take is that he would have at least tried it out. He certainly had a thing for her & the movie wants us to know that. The long shot where he sees her for the very 1st time is showing us love at first site. When he goes shopping for the "Delfonics" music that she played.
Their relationship had been on the up & up. They weren't lying to each other & trying to get over on anybody like several other's in the movie. So you think he still wants to take his stun gun & regular gun & hunt dangerous people down. He is 56 in the movie. I think he would have at least tried out a relationship with Jackie in a villa in Spain with a killer view of a windswept beach.
They would have had Jackie's money & Max seemed like the type of guy who had run his businees in a proper manner & he could have left with a big chunk of dough himself. About whether he was afraid of her.I don't think he was afraid of her to the point that he wouldn't give it a try. She wants him to comeshe wants him to have money from the heist.
Neither one of them have somebody. You can have all the dough in the world.but if you don't have a special somebody to share things with.it's still not a great life.
Maybe I'm a romantic.but I see Jackie & Max in Spain together. No more waiting on people on a plane for 16 grand a year for Jackie.no more running around after dangerous people for Max. They were both smart. OK - The End. -
gregmays — 14 years ago(May 08, 2011 03:35 PM)
The long shot where he sees her for the very 1st time is showing us love at first site. <<
It's funny you mention that scene. Tarantino has quite a bit to say about that scene on the Collector's Edition DVD.
When the film came out, he liked to view the film with a real audience to get their reactions during the movie. And, he would go to Black theaters in LA, and he would go to White theaters too, to see if there was a difference. Now, he says he was really making the movie for a Black audience, and they invariably reacted exactly as he expected. Buthe never realized that anyone would take that scene as 'Love at First Sight'. Because a love song played in the background, that's how White audiences perceived that scene. He was using that song because it had a very strong rhythm, and Jackie was walking in step with it. He meant the scene to make a bold exposition of the main character, and that's exactly how Black people saw it. Here she was walking out of jail, probably going to lose her job, but still walks with dignity, her head held high.
So, maybe that's why some people see a deeper feeling from Max toward Jackie. Because they felt from the beginning of the movie, that he was smitten. I think he was very skeptical about her in the beginning. First of all, for being in any way involved with Ordell Robee. Second, the incident where she 'bottows' Max's handgun. Through that point, she's behaving like any other slightly shady person.
I personally don't think he really fell for her until the second time they're in the Food Court, and he realizes the ingenuity of her plan, and he starts to smile. And that's when his mind put everything together. That's when he realizes that just as she's about to change her life, it was getting to know her, that convinced him to change his own.
Like a lot of movies, Tarantino left it to the audience to decide whether Jackie and Max would wind up together in the end. We write our own script for them. And that's kind of fun too. -
koffeenkreame41-1 — 14 years ago(June 05, 2011 07:40 AM)
He realizes shortly after when he sees her drive that he made a horrible mistake. I think there still is a chance that he went after her. Asking the person on the phone to call him back in 30 minutes, leaves it up to you.
"I am the ultimate badass, you do not wanna*beep*wit' me!" Hudson in Aliens. -
Shelleyl101 — 14 years ago(August 16, 2011 08:52 PM)
This is just a theory that kind of expands on the he was scared of her one - but I got the impression that he hadn't realised she was going to have Ordell killed. Hear it out, but I will admit if this is flawed because I was watching the end really late and half asleep at night. I thought maybe Max assumed they would just hand Ordell over to the ATF, get arrested and Jackie (and maybe Max too) would disappear with the money without a trace. I vaguely remember a shocked look on his face when it happened, wasn't sure whether it was because he'd just seen a man killed in front of his eyes or because he hadn't expected it to happen at all.
That, maybe? with the idea that he knew he couldnt trust her or what she was capable of, I thought was why he decided against it despite his attraction to her. -
queenshan — 14 years ago(August 20, 2011 09:19 PM)
@Greg,
First of all, I love this thread! So many well-written and thoughtful ideas.
So, I am black (and a woman) - in terms of what Tarantino observed from white/black audiences in generalI took the scene to be love at first sight. It wasn't the music at first, although the music did help me eventually react that way. Yeah she was walking like a strong "sista", I got that.
But it was the look on his face as she walked. It was a long, lingering and interested look he was giving her. We were watching him watch her for a long time, not just us watching her. But he could only see her shadow, how could he even know anything about her? That's what I was wondering. And I figured it didn't make any sense but it was what it was.
He also had a smile on his face when he headed to his office and discovered that the gun was gone. Maybe he's just a generally content kind of guy who enjoyed his job.
But he definitely expressed that he had the hots for her immediately after he first saw her - asking her out for a drink after just bailing her out, and he even offered to let her keep his gun for awhile, and he continued to ask a lot of probing slightly jealous-sounding questions about Odell. As I watched, in my mind all of this supported the idea that he fell for her as soon as he saw her. So my belief grew stronger as I observed his actions throughout the rest of the movie.
The ending
He was obviously conflicted. He said "no" as a knee-jerk reaction. But then, even though he was professional to his core and cared very much about his job - he told the caller who desperately needed help for her son to WAIT. There was urgency as he hung up on her. But Jackie hadn't even hesitated, and sped away. If she hadn't been so hasty, maybe he would have walked out the door and said something else to her. But she hadn't. So he turned around, thinking about what could have been. The moment had passed - for both his time to make a choice, and his chance to change his mind.
Earlier in the film, she asked several times - "if/when the time comes would you be tempted to steal crime money?" And he couldn't really answer her at first. I think that the question was ultimately about more than just the money. In life there really are fork-in-the-road moments and choices that literally change everything. Sometimes you don't even realize it, while other times you know it and it hurts.
Here's the scene when he first saw her from the script:
MAX
Still reading his novel. We hear offscreen, a SHERIFF'S
voice.
SHERIFF (O.S.)
Max! Here she comes.
Max puts his book down and see -
Jackie being led into the Admitting Area by TWO SHERIFFS.
She's wearing her stewardess uniform and carrying a small
envelope with her belongings in it and her shoes. When
Max was imagining a woman in her forties, he had someone
with a bit of wear and tear on them in mind. But this
Jackie Brown's a knockout.
As he watches her, she steps out of the County Jail
slippers she was wearing and slips into her shoes.
He approaches, handing her his card.
MAX
Miss Brown I'm Max Cherry. I'm
your bail bondsman.
And here's the last part of the final scene from the scripts:
JACKIE
I didn't use you, Max.
MAX
I didn't say you did.
JACKIE
I never lied to you.
MAX
I know.
JACKIE
We're partners.
MAX
I'm fifty-five-years old. I can't
blame anybody for anything I do.
JACKIE
Do you blame yourself for helping me?
He shakes his head 'no.'
JACKIE (CONT'D)
'd feel a whole lot better if you
took some more money.
MAX
(smiling)
You'll get over that.
Jackie smiles.
MAX (CONT'D)
Where're you going?
JACKIE
Spain.
MAX
Madrid or Barcelona?
JACKIE
Start off in Madrid. Ever been there?
He shakes his head 'no.'
JACKIE (CONT'D)
I hear they don't eat dinner till
midnight.
Max doesn't say anything.
JACKIE
Wanna go?
MAX
Thanks, but you have a good time.
JACKIE
Sure I can't twist your arm?
MAX
Thank you for saying that, but no. My
business.
JACKIE
I thought you were tired of your
business?
MAX
I'm just tired in general.
JACKIE
Are you scared of me?
Max smiles and holds up two fingers, close to each other.
MAX
A little bit.
Jackie smiles back.
JACKIE
Come over here.
Max does.
They give each other a long, tender kiss.
She breaks it.
JACKIE (CONT'D)
I'll send you a postcard, partner.
THE END