Be Cool

Be Cool (Director: F. Gary Gray)

Gray began as a music video director, and his film Friday is one of the biggest cult comedies ever. He also did Set It Off, which I hear is good, then he did the excellent The Negotiatior. However, Gray took a turn for the worse when he made the long-shelved A Man Apart and then the same year came out with The Italian Job, which despite being a surprise hit that is now getting a sequel, sucked. Both of those films made mention on my Worst of 2003 list, with A Man Apart making it at number 7. This film is based on the 2000 Elmore Leonard novel Be Cool, which is the sequel to Get Shorty.

This film sequel to Get Shorty is one of those films that had a lot of ideas, and the filmmakers stuck every one of them in hoping something would stick. It has some of the same setup as Shorty, where former shylock-cum-movie producer Chili Palmer (John Travolta) has been thinking about getting out of the movie business to enter the music industry. He has just the kind of talent he needs, club singer Linda Moon (Christina Milian, in her second film in as many weeks after Man of the House), to make the attempt, with help from music producer Edie Athens (Uma Thurman), who has just lost her husband Tommy (James Woods) to a Russian mob hit, who was with Chili at the time of the shooting. The problem comes from the fact that Linda has a contract with sleazy mogul Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel), and the studio that wants to sign Linda owes money to another mogul, gangsta Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer, with the same one-two combo as Milian).

Wait, there's more--Carr's associate is jive-talkin' wants-to-be-black Raji (Vince Vaughn) who has a bodyguard named Elliot (The Rock) who wants to be an actor, and the Russian mob wants to kill Chili because he's a witness in the Tommy Athens murder. With all this going around, you just know Chili is going to find a way to work everything out--but how?

So...the movie. Let me say right now that Andre 3000, one-half of the duo Outkast, plays a rapper from a group called Dub MD, and in his very few scenes, nearly steals the entire movie. If he could have been a major supporting character, this would have been very enjoyable. With him and Cedric the Entertainer, there's no telling how fabulous and funny this could have been. However, the movie gets stuck on the Nick Carr/Raji/Elliot group--and while The Rock seems to be having fun playing a gay man, Vince Vaughn is almost entirely too much. I'd say his performance lacks subtlety, like it's too self-aware to be funny. He and The Rock do have a couple of good scenes. Travolta as Chili is his usual cool self, but when the movie focuses on him and Thurman and Milian, the movie turns into a musical--Milian is unbelievably talented and hot, but the movie slows to a crawl when it's focused on showing her story arc.

There's a lot of nudge-nudge in here, with Danny DeVito reprising his role as actor Martin Weir, who made the film Get Leo and has now just made the sequel Get Lost. Travolta's opening comments are wink-winks to the film he's in now, talking about sequels and his regret in doing one. There's also a reteaming of Thurman and Travolta for a dance sequence a la Pulp Fiction, and an interesting sort of role-reversal with he and Keitel from the same film (not exactly the same circumstances, but Chili is clearly the one in charge in their scenes). Hey, if you want it, there's a re-teaming of Travolta and Vaughn from Domestic Disturbance if you care.

So, to use a cliche phrase, it's hit-and-miss, mostly miss. One other note: Robert Pastorelli, who died last March, plays a hitman named Joe Loop in his final appearance.