‘Jackie Brown’ Ending Explained: Did Jackie Get Managed To Get Away With It?

‘Jackie Brown’ is a 1997 crime film directed by Quentin Tarantino, adapted from Elmore Leonard’s novel ‘Rum Punch.’ The story follows Jackie Brown, played by Pam Grier, a flight attendant caught smuggling money. The film pays tribute to 1970s blaxploitation films and features notable actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton, and Robert De Niro in supporting roles.

It stands out as Tarantino’s only feature-length film, not based on his original work. ‘Jackie Brown’ is also fairly simple to understand until you reach the last third of the movie, where every character is seemingly looking to double cross his “partner,” and due to that, many fans were looking to understand what exactly went down during the last major heist. We’re here to explain, so let’s go!

Ordell Robie has no time for loose ends

Ordell Robie (Samuel L. Jackson) is a small-time gun-runner in L.A. He is in the middle of recruiting his newest business partner, Louis (Robert De Niro), to assist in some smaller tasks when he gets a call that his active courier, Beaumont Livingston (Christ Tucker), has been arrested. Ordell hires bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster)to bail him out, but the charges turn out to be far more severe than he expected.

Soon after being released from prison, Beaumont gets a visit from Ordell, who talks him into getting into his trunk so they can scare some Koreans into buying his weapons. After Beaumont gets in the trunk, Ordell proceeds to shoot him two times. Ordell’s rationale was that since Beaumont was looking at some pretty serious prison time for violating his parole, Beaumont would most certainly rat him out to the cops to save himself.

Jackie Brown is in hot water with ATF

Jackie Brown is a stewardess who works for Ordell; she smuggles money from Mexico while she flies from Cabo, which makes her perfect for the role. After Beaumont was arrested, one of the names he dropped was Jackie’s, obviously. Soon after Beaumont’s death, Ray Nicolette and LAPD detective Mark Dargus intercept Jackie and bust her, carrying a large sum of money and a small quantity of cocaine. Jackie is also looking at some serious charges, considering that she was arrested with the intention to distribute. Nicolette and Dargus want to make a deal with Jackie; she gives them Ordell, and she walks away just fine. Jackie also knows that if she does that, she will never be free or safe again.

Jackie is also bailed out from prison by Max Cherry, but as soon as he comes to greet her while she is leaving jail, something in him is moved, and he is fascinated by Jackie’s beauty. Max is supposed to drop Jackie back to her apartment, and she uses a moment to steal his gun in case Ordell comes to visit her.

Sure enough, Ordell does show up that night, but instead of catching Jackie off-guard and killing her, Jackie jumps Ordell with the gun, and the two are able to have a rational conversation.

Jackie proposes the following: she will assist the detectives in busting him, but in reality, she is still working for Ordell, and they will figure out how to actually smuggle money across the border underneath the agents’ noses. They will use several “girls” as a cover-up and will essentially double-cross the agents while they think they are in control.

The next day, Jackie goes to Nicolette and Dargus and tells them she will assist with busting Ordell, and they arrange two smuggling operations. First, Jackie will smuggle $ 10,000 dollars, and the agents will not interfere with the money pickup; this is a test run, so the agents learn to trust Jackie and that Ordell gets a false sense of security.

The second run will be $ 500,000 dollars, and the plan is identical to the first plan. Jackie brings the money to a mall, and as soon as one of Ordell’s girl picks up the money and delivers it to him, the agents bust him in the end.

Everybody is trying to doublecross everybody

Ordell’s business associate Louis sleeps with Ordell’s girl Melanie as soon as he is left alone with her, and she starts talking him into betraying Ordell the first chance she gets. Louis comes clean to Ordell that he slept with Melanie and that she was basically shit-talking him behind his back. Ordell laughs it off and says that he has several girls around town; he also doesn’t trust Melanie one bit; he can control her, but he doesn’t trust her at all.

At the same time, Jackie is developing a plan with Max Cherry, the bail bondsman, to doublecross Ordell.

Test run – Ordell doublecrosses Jackie Brown

The day of the test run has arrived, and agents are preparing Jackie and practicing last-minute details of the pickup with her. She has a white paper bag with purple details on it and is supposed to meet Ordell’s girl in the mall’s food court. The plan is going smoothly, and as soon as Jackie takes a seat at the food court, one of Ordell’s girls shows up, and Sharonda swaps bags with Jackie. Sharonda leaves first, followed by Jackie, but Max is observing the exchange carefully and notices a third woman who swapped bags with Sharonda – Simone. Essentially, Ordell had a second girl ready to exchange the money in case Jackie betrayed him.

Max tells Jackie what went down after she left, and she is furious. She confronts Ordell about it and tells him that both their futures depend on him not messing this one up. Ordell apologizes but tells her that he had to secure his money, but ultimately, that last girl, Simone, is the one who betrayed him since she left town with his $ 10,000.

Second run – Jackie double crosses Ordell

Now, as the day of the second run is coming closer, Jackie puts her own plan in motion. Ordell thinks that she is smuggling $ 500,000 across the border, BUT Jackie tells Nicolette and Dargus that Ordell wants her to smuggle only $ 50,000 because he is afraid that he will get busted. The story sounds plausible enough the agents don’t question it.

Ordell, at the same time, is forced to use Melanie as his pickup girl. The plan is the following: Jackie is supposed to enter the clothing shop at the mall and leave the money in the last changing cabin in the store, and Melanie is supposed to pick up this money and deliver it to Ordell.

After the agents marked the money, thinking that Jackie had only $ 50,000 in the bag, they sent her on their way. Jackie enters the first store and asks to try on a suit. Lois and Melanie are almost late to the pickup because of their bickering. Melanie is really going on Louis’ nerves and he has to physically drag her to the store. Out of the corner of his eye, Lois noticed Max Cherry looming in the background.

Once at the store, Melanie picks up the bag with the money, not knowing that only $ 50,000 is in it. Jackie leaves her some money on top of the bag, which Melanie hides in her pants. Outside of the store, in the parking lot, Melanie keeps teasing Louis because he can’t find his car in the massive parking lot. He promptly shoots her two times in broad daylight and drives away with the money.

At the store, Jackie left one more identical bag of money in the last cabin; this bag contains $450 000. Louis swoops in and retrieves the bag.

Ordell figures out that he’s been played

Louis picks up Ordell and tells him that he’s shot and killed Melanie; Ordell is pissed, but it is what it is. If she was problematic, he was willing to let it slide. He opens the bag and notices that the only the first layer is the money, the rest of the items in the bag are books.

Now he is really pissed off, and he asks Louis what the hell has happened and where is his money. Louis is stunned and swears that he saw Melanie leaving with the money before he shot her. He also briefly mentioned seeing Max Cherry at the store and everything clicks into place for Ordell.

Ordell shoots Louis two times – no loose ends and all. Jackie, in the meantime, is in hot water with the agents since only some cash has been found on Melanie, and she was found dead in the parking lot. This is unfortunate since there’s not enough evidence to bust Ordell. Jackie swears that Melanie picked up the money, but it seems that Ordell managed to kill her before the agents could jump him and bust him.

At the same time, Ordell is trying to get to Max Cherry. And the second part of the plan is put in motion.

Jackie and Max get away with it

After one threatening call for Max, Max orders his right-hand man to locate where Ordell is currently staying. The authorities are looking for Ordell for two murders that can be connected to him, Melanie and Louis.

Ordell is staying at one of his girlfriends’ places, and Max manages to locate him in no time. Ordell is ready to shoot him, but Max convinces him that this is all part of the plan and that Jackie has his money in full and is holding it in a secure location. By causing this giant mix-up, the authorities can’t bust Ordell, and she remains free because, technically, she did help them; it’s on them that they didn’t follow Melanie properly.

Ordell buys into it partially, and Max tells him that Jackie is waiting for them at his office. Ordell holds Max at gunpoint as they go to Max’s office, where Jackie is sitting in the dark.

She is prepared to shoot Ordell if necessary, but tonight, this is over. Max and Ordell enter his office, and Ordell is wondering out loud why all the lights are turned off. Before Ordell can react, Jackie starts screaming, “he got a gun,” and the two agents hiding in the back rooms burst out and shoot Ordell on site. He is dead, and he never managed to reveal to the cops how much money Jackie truly smuggled.

Why didn’t Max go to Madrie with Jackie?

Three days later, after the dust has settled, Jackie visits Max – her business partner, in a car that she “stole” from now-deceased Ordell. Max took 10 % of the money she smuggled across the border, which means that he is now a rich man and doesn’t have to work bail, as he previously expressed that he wants to retire from the business.

Jackie visits Max and asks him whether he feels used by her. She also explains that he never lied to him and that they were business partners. Max explains that he can’t blame her for what he decided to do on his own, helping her, and admits that he is a little bit scared of her. Jackie invited Max to Spain with her – twice- but he declined, that’s too much for him.

Jackie stands up and kisses him, promising to send him the postcard; just at that moment, they are interrupted by a phone call: somebody needs Max’s bail services. Jackie walks away and sits in her car. Max asks the person on the phone whether he can call her back in half an hour and thinks once again about going with Jackie to Spain but ultimately decides against it.

Max obviously never planned on getting involved in Jackie’s mess to such an extent. He was infatuated with her. It was love at first sight, but after everything that went down with ATF and Ordell, Max realized that he was looking for excitement and a break from his boring business at the wrong place. He mentioned on several occasions that he was “old,” and at 56 years old, he probably wanted to have some whirlwind romance and instead took part in money smuggling and an undercover operation that was supposed to take down weapon-smuggling kingpin which ended with 3 people ultimately dying. This is most likely the reason that he declined to go to Spain with Jackie, as it was really too much for him. No matter how much he wanted to, he was ultimately only a bit scared of Jackie.

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