Film Review – Be Cool
Starring: John Travolta, Uma
Thurman, Christina Milian, Danny DeVito
Cert: 12a
Released:1st April 2005
Chili Palmer (Travolta) is bored
of being in the film industry. After a chat (and death) of a pal who has come to
pitch his life story in the music industry, Chili decides it’s time for another
change in direction in his career.
He meets ‘the hottest new voice’ (Milian) his pal was pitching, decides
to manage her and in turn ends up upsetting her current manager (Vince Vaughn),
his bodyguard (The Rock), their label manager (Harvey Keitel), a rap producer
(Cedric The Entertainer), his crew and the Russian mafia. He also starts
romancing his pal’s widow (Thurman).
Allegiances are formed, then crossed, double crossed and triple crossed
all for $300k and the girl’s contract.
It was 10 years ago that Get Shorty was released as one of the
more true adaptations of an Elmore Leonard novel and Travolta (hot after his Pulp Fiction resurrection) became the
embodiment of cool and sophistication as Chili Palmer. So now he’s back in this
adaptation of Leonard’s sequel looking a bit more wrinkled but otherwise still
cutting a dashing figure in the black suit, straight talk and smouldering
glare.
The convoluted plot, array of outlandish characters and deftly witty
dialogue are all in keeping with Get
Shorty but it still seemed to be a bit contrived in places and certainly had
something missing that made Shorty an
instant classic.
By contrived I mean that there are a number of set pieces that look like
they were taken straight from Shorty
and just changed the actors: swap the screenplay for the singer, there’s a
similar bodyguard who’s not very good at what he does and also Chili’s
out-of-character car to name a few instances.
Then there’s the whole Travolta/Thurman thing like this is supposed to be
the greatest teaming since Pacino and De Nero in Heat. Okay, so they did a pretty cool
dance in Pulp Fiction but why try to
recapture that moment in a drawn out dance sequence? It’s not a pastiche so is
it a homage to themselves (which would be a tad self-indulgent)? It certainly
goes on for too long to just be an aside so has to have been intended as a
pertinent moment.
That leads me on to my next niggle; it’s a film about the music business
but that doesn’t mean I should have to sit through entire videos that break up
the narrative flow and overall atmosphere. Get Shorty used music to emphasise the
mood of the film with a steady flow of R ‘n’ B tracks from the likes of Booker T and the MGs whereas Be Cool divides its scenes with pop
promos.
It’s not a bad film and is easy to get into if you’re already familiar
with the backstory. There are plenty of odd-ball characters, smartarse lines and
self-referential jokes (one specifically on the certification guidelines to
saying the ‘f’ word) to invoke the chuckles but as a comparable sequel it
doesn’t do exactly what it says on the label.
