Get Shorty

"Get Shorty" is a celebration of that usual Barry Sonnenfeld style of film making. Great characters, done by a great cast including John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo and.. Well the list just goes on and on. A perfect mix-up of that so called "character-comedy", a movie progressing and dependant on the characters, making it hilarious comedy chaos.

The best thing about this film is obviously the whole cast, John Travolta as the smooth bad ass Chili Palmer, Gene Hackman as the hectic Harry Zimm. A bit unusual role from Hackman, which also makes the character so hilariously surreal. Rene Russo as "the girl" Karen Flores, Danny DeVito as the movie star Martin Weir with a huge ego, Dennis Farina as the loud mouth usual himself Ray 'Bones' Barboni. Delroy Lindo as the tough Bo Catlett and James Gandolfini as Bo's bodyguard, failed stuntman Bear. Everyone just simply click together, which makes the movie even better than it actually is. It's just all about the characters. Chili Palmer must be one of the coolest characters ever seen on the big screen.

Like mentioned before, Barry Sonnenfeld is the director of the movie and I honestly can't imagine anyone else directing a movie with a screenplay like this except Steven Soderbergh, the director of for example both "Ocean's Eleven" and "Ocean's Twelve". I think that Sonnenfeld's and Soderbergh's styles connect together, they are very similar. And if they'd do a British version of the movie, the director would be Guy Ritchie without a doubt. If you recognised both Soderbergh and Ritchie, then you know the style I'm talking about and if you like both of their movies you should see "Get Shorty". The other thing similar between these three directors besides the directing is the music used in their films. It's that usual horns and trumpets, giving that funky and exciting feeling for the film. It just fits for movies like these, creating that what is needed for the style. It also connects with the cinematography as well; Sudden movements of the angles, sudden stops, shots really close of the faces in these specific angles and when you add the music to that it's voilá.

"Get Shorty" is all in all a great comedy with a plot that doesn't go over the silliness level. Sometimes movies like these go over that level, which usually make them funnier but also makes the whole story so unbelievable that it just isn't enjoyable as a movie anymore. Well the movie itself isn't THAT serious, it's a comedy after all, but it's definitely some quality entertainment. It includes a nice storyline, great characters and directing that just doesn't let you down. I recommend this movie to everyone once again. It's not amazing or phenomenal, it's a nice piece of entertainment, keeping you glued to your sofa throughout. What more can you ask for a boring Friday evening?

Get Shorty is a hilariously funny, brilliantly written and colorfully acted satire of how hard it is to get a Hollywood movie made. All the moving pieces and different parties, each with their own motivations and goals, make it a natural fit for a film-loving gangster. Leonard is the man, as the movie totally depends on his script, and every part of it is awesome (dialogue, characters, story webbing).

When his boss has a heart attack, mob hard man Chili Palmer finds himself working indirectly for Ray Barboni. Barboni's instance on picking through his books and finds the case of a dry-cleaner who owes money but is dead. With pressure to cover the debt himself, Chili sets out to find the man who he knows isn't really dead – his search takes him to LA where he follows up another debt in the form of Harry Zimm. Zimm is a producer of trashy movies and Chili sees him as his way into the movie business and out of loan sharking – businesses that he realises are actually not that different.

With the release (and drubbing) of the sequel, I decided to take the chance to watch the original film again and review it because I hadn't seen it since it first came out a decade ago. The story is potentially quite messy as it has quite a few threads with different characters coming and going quite quickly and it is to its credit that it manages to hold it all together and bring it off satisfyingly well. It doesn't have a great deal of depth of course but it only aims to be slick and it manages to do this pretty well considering. The script has plenty of injokes to match the slick dialogue and narrative and the story does move along in a manner that is enjoyable on several levels. I think claims that it is "hilarious" is maybe taking it a bit too far because it isn't really laugh out loud funny more than once or twice but it is entertaining in a stylish and slick way that makes it quite fun to watch.

The cast really help and the majority of them give enjoyable performances even if the aforementioned depth isn't there for them to do a great deal with. Travolta enjoys a funnier version of the role that gave him his mid-nineties comeback with Pulp Fiction and he handles himself well – as slick as he is sleek and with a really cool presence that is important since the character is nothing more than cool presence. De Vito does really well sending up movie stars (specifically, if we are to believe all we read, Dustin Hoffman) but Russo seems to be an addition with nothing specific to do despite her still being enjoyable. Farina can do mobsters in his sleep so at least here he gets to enjoy himself at the same time; Lindo is a good match for Travolta and is a good bit of casting with good support from Gandolfini. In joke cameos are "take it or leave it" so they are not critical to the film but Keitel, Baldwin and Marshall stand out as being in there.

Overall this is not a film that is hilarious or one that has great character development. Rather what it is is a slick story told with style and swagger – much like Chili himself. The plot threads are helped by not ever having a lot of detail behind them to be picked up but they are still potentially messy and the film does well to bring them all together in a pleasing and knowing fashion. The starry cast is good value and all in all the film is entertaining; which was all I really wanted from it in the first place.

John Travolta followed up his "Pulp Fiction" comeback with "Get Shorty", in which he plays Miami hit-man Chili Palmer. Moving to Hollywood to collect a debt, he finds that show biz isn't much different from the mafia, and he decides to get involved. But of course, once there's anything mafia-related involved, things start to get ugly. Not that they weren't already seedy.

This movie has its strengths mainly in the script, but also in the strong performances from Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo and Danny DeVito. I guess that any time that someone gets a chance to show Hollywood's unseemly side, they take it. Of course, there's plenty of reasons to do so. The sequel, "Be Cool", wasn't quite as good, but still worth seeing.

I saw this movie in 1995 when first released, but never got around to thinking about a review until I saw it again a few weeks back on late night TV. I'd forgotten just how good it is...

From a novel by Elmore Leonard, this story is arguably the best satire about the Hollywood dream factory yet done, for two reasons: it savagely exposes and lampoons the behaviors of actors, writers, producers and directors and it implicitly compares that business with the business of small time hoodlums and loan sharks. So many times during this story does Chili Palmer (John Travolta) announce, in a bemused fashion: "I can't believe how youse guys do business out here..." Chili, as we learn very early, is a loan shark from Miami who is ordered by Bones (Dennis Farina), his new boss, to recover a $15,000 debt from Leo (David Paymer), a loser with a garrulous wife, Fay (Linda Hart) who's helped Leo fake his own death on a plane crash and collect $300,000 as a settlement from the airline. Fay, of course, can't keep her mouth shut and tells Chili that Leo scammed the money and was now living it up in Vegas. Chili, in Vegas, finds out that Leo has gone to LA. But Chili also makes a score: a Vegas casino owner asks him to lean on an LA movie producer, Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) for $150,000 still owing.

So, off to La-La Land goes Chili, and that's where the fun really starts...

The plot then changes direction, almost completely: Chili, after recovering most of the $300,000 from Leo (and letting him off lightly), gets involved with Harry in two ways – first, convinces him to take on Chili's own idea for a movie production and second, fend off two "investors" (who just happened to be drug pushers also) who want their money back from Harry who – you guessed it – is late in getting some other movie off the ground, and has spent all their money.

However, those two pushy investors, Bo Catlett and Ronnie Wingate (Delroy Lindo and John Gries), have another problem: the $500,000 drug money that they can't retrieve from a locker box at LAX and which Chili sees as an opportunity to make more profit. That idea, however, is blown away when Bones – who would like nothing better than to see Chili dead -- arrives from Miami looking to muscle in on Chili's business in LA.

How all that threads together into a gloriously comedic and ironic slice of Hollywood life and death is a testament to Leonard's brilliant story, a great screenplay and cinematography and tight editing – not to mention the almost flawless acting by actors who are continually taking the mickey out of the whole business, right up to the final scene.

There's no doubt that this is Travolta's comeback movie. The guy just oozes dangerous cool and --- ooops – chilling competence as he maneuvers between the high and low life of a strange town, with some very strange people and even stranger business practices. But, kudos also go to Dennis Farina, Gene Hackman and Danny DeVito as the klutzes they portray; and Renee Russo is suitably decorous as Chili's love interest. Watch out for cameos from Bette Midler, Harvey Keitel and other Hollywood luminaries.

And, here's the supreme self-referential irony: there really is a real Chili Palmer in the movie; he's one of the actors who has a bit part as one of Bones' buddies! What a gag...

Finally, note the title: Get Shorty. That's Elmore Leonard's delicious swipe at the whole gangster genre. Remember Get Carter (1971)...? Ho-ho-HO-ho-ho!

Highly recommended.