`JACKIE BROWN' LACKS SHOWMANSHIP, SCAM.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited third feature will come as a surprise to most, an admirable move toward maturity to a few and a disappointment to many. While ``Jackie Brown'' aims for - and to an extent, achieves - character substance over flash, it's indulgent in ways that the tightly plotted, inventively outrageous ``Pulp Fiction'' and ``Reservoir Dogs'' were not.

Tarantino is trying to break through to a more serious level of filmmaking here, and bless him for the effort. But in doing so, he's turned his back on some of the unique showmanship that not only made his earlier films more entertaining, but better works of art.

Adapting Elmore Leonard's crime comedy ``Rum Punch'' from South Florida to the South Bay, Tarantino has given the material a flavorful California slant. But if this is indeed the land of laid-back aimlessness, he's brought too much of that to the party, too. Most scenes in ``Jackie Brown'' go on longer than they need to, and too many of them go nowhere at all.

Loaded with Tarantino's profanely witty dialogue and all but devoid of violence, these extended riffs certainly have their pleasures - and, unless you're sensitive to a certain overused racial epithet, little of the stuff that disturbs people. But they make ``Jackie Brown'' seem like much too much about not very much; you keep waiting for an ear-slice or something to charge things up.

If ``Reservoir Dogs' '' theme was honor among thieves and ``Pulp Fiction's'' was their squirrely redemption, ``Jackie Brown's'' is the less-stirring comedy of what happens when thieves fall out. The film's one good idea - and it's Tarantino's, not Leonard's - is that a middle aged, African-American loser, once she's backed against the wall, can outwit the male social forces that have ruined her life ... And maybe meet a nice guy in the process.

Our title heroine is played by Pam Grier, queen of the '70s blaxploitation film cycle. She's perfect casting for someone who wound up an underpaid stewardess for a woebegone short hop airline called Cabo Air. To supplement her barely five-digit salary, she mules money occasionally for Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson), a low-level gunrunner, across the border.

Busted at the airport by an opportunistic ATF (U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent (Michael Keaton) and an L.A. cop (Michael Bowen), Jackie is given the choice of setting the murderous Ordell up for a sting or going to prison and losing what little she has. But there's a third option: play both sides into thinking she's working for them on a $500,000 money drop, then scoot with the cash herself.

To pull this risky scam, she enlists the aid of a lovestruck, middle-aged bail bondsman (Robert Forster, Quentin's latest career-reconstruction project, who has a persuasive, lived-in soulfulness). Little does she know that two of Ordell's compatriots - rumpled, self-expression-impaired ex-con Louis (Robert De Niro, underplaying adroitly) and aging, bong-powered professional girlfriend Melanie (Bridget Fonda) - have hatched their own scheme to swipe the swag.

A lot of this more than 2-1/2-hour-long movie is spent setting up the big swindle - centered, appropriately, at the Del Amo Fashion Square - and then pulling it off, Tarantinoishly, from differing viewpoints and overlapping time frames.

However, like the relatively modest amount of cash involved, the scheme is too simple to pay off in a satisfying way. ``Jackie Brown'' may be a character study, but it's all dressed up like a caper film. Between them, writers as clever as Tarantino and Leonard owed us something trickier.

Grier gets Jackie's sassy, nothing-to-lose daring across and then some, but doesn't locate much of the woman's desperation. Jackson, as before, is the perfect spokesman for Tarantino's lunatic lyrical dialogue, and can turn from self-mocking clownishness to withering menace on a dime. The devil's deal he's made for such great stuff to work with seems to be the wearing of ridiculous hair, in this case a combed-back, Kangol-capped mane and some braided pharoah thing that dribbles down off his chin.

Tarantino moves ahead in some interesting ways with ``Jackie Brown,'' and, of course, anyone of his prodigious talent should be encouraged to grow and change. Sometimes these experiments aren't going to work, even when they're done with the care and intelligence evident here. The most exciting thing about ``Jackie Brown'' is it's evidence that, whatever else success has done to Quentin Tarantino, it hasn't made him complacent.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Jackie Brown'' (R; language, violence, drug use, sex).

The stars: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro, Bridget Fonda, Michael Keaton.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, based on Elmore Leonard's novel ``Rum Punch.'' Produced by Lawrence Bender. Released by Miramax Films.

Running time: Two hours, 40 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two and one-half stars

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Photo

PHOTO Robert DeNiro, left, and Samuel L. Jackson do their best to define their characters in Quentin Tarantino's ``Jackie Brown.''