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Be Cool
Release Date: March 4, 2005
Studio: MGM
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenwriter: Peter Steinfeld
Starring: John Travolta, Vince Vaughn, Andre 3000, Christina
Milian, Harvey Keitel, Danny DeVito, Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer, Robert
Pastorelli, Steven Tyler, The Rock
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for violence, sensuality, and language including
sexual references)
Official Website:
BeCoolmovie.com
Plot Summary: John Travolta is back as Chili
Palmer in "Be Cool," a sequel to the comedy smash "Get Shorty". This time, Chili
becomes a different kind of "hit" man – he abandons the movie industry to bring
his wiseguy skills and negotiation tactics to the music business. When a friend
is offed while they're at lunch, Chili takes the opportunity to visit the guy's
wife, Edie (Thurman), and pitch himself as her new business partner at an
independent record label. With a promising young pop-star-in-training as his
protégé (Milian), Chili has to juggle her faux-urban manager (Vaughn), his gay,
wannabe-actor bodyguard (The Rock), Russian mobsters, and an eloquent gangsta
music producer (Cedric) to save the label and land a hit – and keep from getting
popped himself.
Reviewed by Peter
Veugelaers © 2005
- Who said they don't make 'em like they used to?
Be Cool
has a message for the music industry – chill out. With the
likes of the suave Chilli Palmer, a movie mogul turned record producer, as
played by John Travolta, the message and movie might be smooth running except
Be Cool does not quite get the formula right.
The sequel to Get Shorty interweaves gangster
rappers, the Russian mafia, new talent, and dodgy competitors with the good
guys of the music business, ex-movie producer Chilli Palmer teamed with Edie
(Uma Thurman) whose record producer husband (James Woods) was gunned down in
a drive-by at a restaurant. Palmer takes on young and promising night singer
Linda Moon (Christina Milain) to record an album after breaking faith with
her dubious management team. They comprise of a reasonably funny wannabe
white jive imitator, think the absurd reverse – black people wanting to be
Emeniem – played well by Vince Vaughn, and his boss (Harvey Kietel). But
Palmer has broken the contract and a dirty fight ensues for Moon’s singing
talents.
Based on the Elmore Leonard novel, Be Cool is not as
sharp as it might seem on paper and veers into self parody of the original movie
and parody of Hollywood, a mix of in-jokes that intermittently work, but the
mise-en-scene is often meaningful with irony. Palmer’s motive for hiring the
young Moon is understandable enough, if you read between the lines, and which is
not too hard to figure out, and Travolta’s smooth playing of his role nicely
counter balances the pseudo darkly funny backbiting and cat and mouse dodgem
comedy antics between the characters. Particularly good is Cedric the
Entertainer as Palmer’s creditor and The Rock is pretty good in a deliberate
piece of anti-stereotyping characterisation as a sympathetically presented gay
wannabe actor.
The movie lets
down when Palmer’s characterisation becomes soft and obvious when the subtle is
let out of bag and he appears sentimentally attached to what was a cool
detachment, certainly cooler to watch. The ending goes the same way. But the
message for the music industry is undeniable: be cool. Underrated director F.
Gary Gray (The Italian Job, A Man Apart, Friday) is
stylistically efficient in presenting another entertaining movie.
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