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Be Cool
3/4/05 - PG-13 - 137m
John Travolta - Chili Palmer
Uma Thurman - Edie Athens
Vince Vaughn - Raji
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenplay by: Peter Steinfeld
Studio: MGM
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JEF
Ok, maybe this wasn’t the greatest film ever made, but I was really entertained by this movie.
Storyline: A sequel to “Get Shorty” we meet up again with Chili Palmer (John Travolta). Chili is talked into entering the music business after his successful career change from a mob shylock to a movie producer. Chili teams up with Edie (Uma Thurman) to bring a young musical starlet, Linda Moon (Christina Milian) to the big time. The problem is that Linda’s already in a 5-year contract with Raji (Vince Vaughn). Throw in some more conflict between Edie and Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer) and you’ve got a whirlwind of a story.
I’ll start with the complaints first… I definitely think the movie was too long and could have been edited down almost a good 20 minutes worth. I can understand the reason for this as with so many stars (both film and music) they wanted to showcase all these talents, but there were times when the movie really started to drag. Related to this also were the “music video” scenes… Although it was kinda neat to see the songs performed, they were too long.
Even some of the comedic elements, that really had me laughing out loud, were too long. For example Dabu (André Benjamin) trying to get comfortable and look “tough” while sitting in a funky chair was really funny, but they drug it out too long.
The storyline was a bit involved and perhaps overdone. Maybe a little too jumpy too with all the different characters, but I wasn’t really involved in the storyline so much. I was just sitting back and being entertained.
So what did I like? I really liked the various characters… especially Dabu (André) and Raji (Vince Vaughn). There were just certain moments that had me really laughin’. Any movie that can get me to laugh like that and I’m gonna give a green light 
. I also enjoyed the character of Elliot Wilhelm, played by “The Rock”. The Rock can act. So far I’m very impressed with his career (though I have not seen The Scorpion King).
I also enjoyed the challenge of trying to pick out all the famous music stars. There was one scene during an award reception, where I recognized Gene Simons and Fred Durst, just to name two.
There was one other thing I should mention that almost bothered me… The film relied heavily on some typical stereotypes, for example the “gangsta” image. This would have probably bothered me in another movie, but in this particular movie they were pretty much making a parody of ALL the stereotypes. So because they were making fun of them, I think they were able to get away with it.
I think also, in order to enjoy this movie you have to like the music world. There were so many cameos, and music variations that you would have to recognize. Just a big part of the movie that would get lost on the viewer who didn’t know these various artists.
All in all, a character driven movie with a mediocre storyline, and poor editing. But the characters are interesting and so over-the-top that it made up for all the other flaws, so that I enjoyed it.
Jef
