What Elmore Leonard novel is Jackie Brown based on?

Jackie Brown is based on Elmore Leonard’s 1992 novel Rum Punch.

Leonard’s crime novel follows Jackie Burke, a flight attendant caught smuggling cash for gunrunner Ordell Robbie. After federal agents arrest her, Jackie is pressured to help trap Ordell, but she secretly devises a plan to outwit both the criminals and the authorities. The film preserves that central double-crossing plot.

Quentin Tarantino adapted the novel after acquiring its film rights with Roger Avary. He changed Jackie from a white character named Burke into a Black character named Brown, writing the role specifically for Pam Grier. That change also allowed the movie to engage with Grier’s reputation in 1970s blaxploitation cinema, especially films such as Coffy and Foxy Brown.

Jackie Brown, released in 1997, is Tarantino’s only feature-length film directly adapted from another work. A frequent confusion is Out of Sight, another Leonard adaptation, but that film comes from Leonard’s 1996 novel of the same name.