Robert Forster made capable men worth watching by letting us see how much they kept to themselves. His quiet attention to Pam Grier in Jackie Brown is reason enough to seek him out.
Fi1m perspective
Robert Forster watches Pam Grier walk towards his car in Jackie Brown (1997), and almost nothing changes in his face. He plays a bail bondsman driving her home from jail, and the scene lets a practical errand become something more personal. We were moved by his attention to her, because it makes the first suggestion of attraction feel important without a declaration. Forster does not insist that we find him charming, which helps us warm to him.
He began with John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) and a starring role in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool (1969). A long stretch of lesser roles in films and television followed before Quentin Tarantino revived his career with Jackie Brown. That history is worth remembering when the later performances make his casting look obvious. He was well suited to men who knew their jobs and had disappointments they did not need to discuss, provided someone gave him enough to play.
Tarantino's patience does not always serve the film: Jackie Brown runs a good half-hour too long, with a middle that explains its scam too often. With Grier and Forster together, though, the unhurried pace lets us notice the respect each gives the other. Grier's level voice and Forster's watchfulness make their scenes feel like conversations between adults who have reasons not to announce everything they want. Forster supplies warmth without making him conspicuously charming, and these exchanges are worth waiting through the unnecessary explanations for.
David Lynch used that steadiness more briefly in Mulholland Drive (2001), casting him as Detective McKnight, and later gave him Sheriff Frank Truman in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017). These authority figures suit an actor whose competence never seems to require a demonstration. There is a limit to what even Forster can do with a brief appearance, and Mulholland Drive is not the place to start if he is the reason for watching. Start with Jackie Brown, and allow for the stretches when its two most interesting people are elsewhere.
Biography
Robert Forster was an American actor. He played bail bondsman Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997), a performance that earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Born Robert Wallace Foster Jr. in Rochester, New York, in 1941, Forster made his screen debut in John Huston’s Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) and starred in the New Hollywood film Medium Cool (1969). He appeared in over 100 films across a career that spanned more than five decades, including roles in The Black Hole (1979), Alligator (1980), The Delta Force (1986), The Descendants (2011), Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and What They Had (2018). On television he featured in series such as Banyon, Heroes, Twin Peaks: The Return and Breaking Bad, winning a Saturn Award for the latter.
Forster died in Los Angeles in 2019.
