PAM GRIER in JACKIE BROWN (1997)
I suppose this one doesn’t entirely count as a comeback, since the former blaxploitation star of urban classics like Coffy and Foxy Brown has yet to land another starring role as meaty as Jackie Brown, the drug-mule stewardess who outsmarts both her murderous boss (Samuel Jackson) and the feds on her tail before riding off into the sunset with a suitcase of cash in Quentin Tarantino’s underrated adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch. Then again, hardly any actresses (especially those of, ahem, a certain age) get to star in major motion pictures as realistically smart, complex, vulnerable women like Jackie, who succeed not with machine guns or sex (although there’s plenty of that simmering just under the surface in Grier’s palpable chemistry with Robert Forster, as bail bondsman Max Cherry, Jackie’s reluctant partner in crime -- one of the great screen couples of all time), but rather through believably human ingenuity and courage. Yet, at the very least, Grier finally earned some overdue respect as an actress from those who’d previously looked down on her B-movie roots, and though she didn’t win an Oscar for her Oscar-worthy career best performance, she at least caught a second wind in her career as a character actress, with relatively high-profile gigs like Jane Campion's Holy Smoke and The L Word...though, come to think of it, maybe it's time for yet another Pam Grier comeback so those of us without Showtime can maybe see her a little more often.
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