Release Date: March 4, 2005
Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Christina Milian, Vince Vaughn, The Rock, Harvey Keitel, Cedric the Entertainer, André 3000, Steven Tyler
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Written by: Peter Steinfeld
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (violence, sensuality, language including sexual references)
I am naturally suspicious of any movie in which movie stars play members of the entertainment industry, but I am also a sucker for all-star casts, so I guess you could say I was more or less inclined to give Be Cool, the F. Gary Gray-directed sequel to 1995’s Get Shorty, a fair shake. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the movie did not betray my trust, amiably dealing out a story that, if not original, is at least entertaining and competently acted.
It centers around Chili Palmer (John Travolta), a movie producer who decides to get into the recording business following the death of a close friend -- and also, not coincidentally, the discovery of a talented young diva named Linda Moon (Christina Milian). Chili introduces Linda to Edie Athens (Uma Thurman), a record label owner, and has big plans for her future, but things aren’t nearly that simple. Linda’s loser manager, Raji (Vince Vaughn) and Raji’s bodyguard, Elliot (The Rock), are understandably reluctant to see their meal ticket stolen from under their noses, and Linda is also under contract with another record label, owned by the slimy Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel). Cedric the Entertainer also appears as Sin LaSalle, the head of a different label eager to make trouble with Edie, and by the time the end credits roll, various posses of gangsta rappers and Russian mobsters also get mixed up in the plot.
But Chili is at the center of the story, which was scripted by Peter Steinfeld and based on Elmore Leonard’s novel, and, as Palmer, Travolta wades through all of the ruckus with an unshakable cool -- emblematic of the film itself, which presses ahead even as many of the jokes fail to connect and too many plot threads are summarily wrapped up. Travolta unfortunately pays the price for this low-key approach, often ceding the spotlight to his more charismatic costars, like the unexpectedly hilarious comic duo of The Rock and Vince Vaughn, who have a great time hamming it up as a gay bodyguard and a white guy who thinks and acts like he’s black, respectively. (The Rock gets to do a “monologue” from Bring It On, something that I never would have expected to see him do several years ago and is indicative of how much of an actor he has become.) But Be Cool is a sequel, and sequels generally take what they can get.
Like all Elmore Leonard adaptations, Be Cool is unmistakable as anything but, which means that it sometimes pays the price, too -- an amicable but mediocre film, it will be lumped in with disasters like 2004’s The Big Bounce and compared unfavorably to successes like Out of Sight and, of course, its predecessor. The good news is that if you are a fan of Leonard, then you will get the same old cocktail of beautiful people, glib humor, and nefarious goings-on that never quite go on as planned (typical of any Leonard work, many of the characters here are amateurs who fancy themselves as real wiseguys).
The only question is whether you can take this mix when it has clearly been microwaved rather than cooked fresh. The director, F. Gary Gray, has done well in the past, but he doesn’t have the style to compete with Leonard the way contemporary auteurs like Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight) or Quentin Tarantino (Jackie Brown) do. Even with a bevy of real-life recording artists in the cast, like Milian, OutKast’s André 3000, and the legendary Aerosmith front man Steven Tyler (which, naturally, leads to some show-stopping musical numbers), the movie still struggles to get around its script-by-numbers approach, putting it in the same league as pseudo-Leonard swill like After the Sunset.
The important thing, however, is that everyone in the movie seems to be having a good time -- or at least, not a bad time, since you can occasionally mistake Travolta’s unfettered cool for unmitigated boredom -- and, as is often the case with Elmore Leonard stories, the enjoyment is contagious. Sit back, be cool, and let the movie do the work.
-- Craig Roush (craigroush@hotmail.com)