Watch out! Jackie Brown is back in town...

QUENTIN TARANTINO fans will be delighted to see that there’s a 25th anniversary re-release of his 1997 crime thriller Jackie Brown (15, 154 mins, ★★★★I), being screened from today in more than 200 cinemas nationwide.

And if you’re really hot on your Tarantino detail, you might also have noted the coincidence of Jean-Luc Godard dying this week. The great French director was a major influence on Tarantino, who named his production company, A Band Apart, after Godard’s 1964 classic Bande à Part.

What Godard in turn thought of Jackie Brown is, as far as I know, undocumented. Either way, it stands alone in Tarantino’s credits as the only one of his films that did not originate in his own head; it is based on the Elmore Leonard novel Rum Punch. Crafted as a homage to the so- called ‘blaxploitation’ movies of the 1970s, it stars Pam Grier, a veteran of those films, in the title role (pictured).

She plays an air stewardess who works for ruthless Los Angeles gun-runner Ordell Robbie (Samuel L Jackson), using her job to smuggle large sums of cash for him, but in the end swindling him.

The last time I watched Jackie Brown on TV, I confess I needed sub-titles. Jackson’s dialogue in particular is delivered at such speed that it’s not always easy for a British audience to follow. That service won’t be available in cinemas, but I’m looking forward to it all the same. It’s a long, occasionally ponderous, but compellingly stylish and witty film, with a marvellous soundtrack and a top-notch supporting cast led by Robert De Niro, with Michael Keaton, Bridget Fonda, Robert Forster and, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo, Danny DeVito.

Another of this week’s releases, In From The Side (15, 134 mins, ★★III), could hardly be more different. A low-budget debut for writer-director Matt Carter, it’s about a love affair between two players at a gay London rugby club, both of whom are in committed relationships with other men.

It’s an intriguing backdrop to a tale of infidelity, but it would be better suited to a four-parter on TV. The film lasts well over two hours and needs a much earlier final whistle.