Be Cool

John Travolta has three acceptable roles, Vinnie Barbarino from Welcome Back, 
Kotter; Vincent Vega from Pulp Fiction and Chilly Palmer from Get Shorty. 
Now in Be Cool, Chilly is back and this time he's getting into the Music biz. 
Right off the bat he's beset on all sides by gangsters, the Russian Mafia, 
the tyranny of evil men oh and complete morons. In other words, Chilly is 
right at home. 

As the sequel to Get Shorty this movie came with pretty high expectations, 
which it fails to meet pretty much across the board. That doesnŐt mean it 
isn't a good movie, just that it doesnŐt really measure up. First of all, 
Vince Vaughn (playing Raji) dressed in Snoop Dogg's 'Huggy Bear' outfit from
the recent Starsky and Hutch travesty isnŐt funny, no matter how much 
"twinkle, twinkle" you slap on it.  Second, when The Rock (as Elliot Wilhelm)
plays a wanna be actor, bodyguard who's "scorchin!" upstages the entire cast
and puts on the best performance in the movie, you know you've got a lot of
problems. Finally, when Chilly and his deceased friends wife and music exec 
Edie (the lovely Uma Thurman) take to the floor to reprise their dance from 
Pulp Fiction you have to wonder where the nearest exit is, and how many people
can you trample along the way. 

Don't despair though; the copious amount of product placement throughout the 
film will make it seem like one long commercial for T-mobile. So you've got
that going for ya.

There are some good aspects to the movie; yes F. Gary Gray's (who brought us 
the Italian job and the newly announced Italian Job II: Electric Boogaloo) 
ham-fisted directing couldn't ruin the great story by the original Get Shorty
writer Elmore Leonard. The movie picks on itself, sequels and the movie 
industry pretty relentlessly -- Did you know that to maintain a PG-13 rating
a filmmaker can only use the F-word once in the film? There are some pretty 
good lines too, "What do you tell a man who's got two black eyes-- Nothing, 
he's already been told twice." And of course the plot itself is creative, 
interesting and fun with plenty of action and just a few twists.

At its heart this is a film about spoofing the music industry, so naturally
there has to be a lot of music. We have Christina Milian as Linda Moon an 
aspiring young starlet with the voice of gold. A fine performance from Sin
LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer) an MBA from Harvard who turned gangsta' 
and mixes records. And the wonderfully politically incorrect WMDs lead by the
trigger happy Dabu (Andre 3000). Even Steven Tyler stops by to smear some of
his funk on the film. 

Overall, this was a disappointing effort. With the exception of The Rock and 
Cedric who make the movie tolerable and even funny, I know - it was as painful 
for me to write as it was for you to read, I would say stay away. The rest of 
the cast does fine but the movieŐs focus on Vaughn never let's them get going
and unfortunately their characters arenŐt quirky enough to make an impression. 
Neither Travolta's ego nor Thurman's legs can steal more than a passing second 
of screen time. And that my friends is a sad thing indeed.

Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, Cedric the Entertainer, 
The Rock, James Woods, Harvey Keitel, Christina Milian and others.
Directed By: F. Gary Gray
Rated: PG-13
Be Cool opens Friday March 4th

Dave can be reached at dkerr@detroitbuzz.com