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Movie: Be Cool
Director: F. Gary Gray
Actors: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, Cedric The Entertainer, Andre 3000, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, James Woods, Danny DeVito, The Rock
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Be Cool is the sequel to the comedy Get Shorty, both movies are adaptations of Elmore Leonard's wonderful novels. John Travolta is back as the smooth ex-ganster Chili Palmer who leaves the movie industry to try out something new as music producer. F. Gary Gray, responsible for the entertaining The Italian Job remake, serves as director of Be Cool.
The story in a nutshell:
Chili Palmer expands his territory as manager/producer in the music industry. His secret weapon is the talented rising star Linda Moon (Christina Milian) but there are other managers like Raji (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) who wants to benefit from this young girl. The competition is tough and all the dirty tricks in the book are being used to outsmart each other. The Russian maffia, trigger-happy Hip-Hop gangsters and the FBI join the show to ruin Chili's new career. Fortunately, label-owner and friend Edie (Uma Thurman) is there to help Chili learn more about the business.
Travolta and Thurman together again in a film after Pulp Fiction and of course they're also back with some smooth dance moves! John Travolta slips with ease back into his role as the slick mobster. The rest of the all-star cast, including Cedric The Entertainer, Andre 3000, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, James Woods, Danny DeVito and The Rock, seem to have quite some fun as well. Vince Vaughn as the white "thug-wannabe" and The Rock as his gay bodyguard Elliot Wilhelm deliver the best performances, providing some pretty funny moments.
Elmore Leonard's writing style is known for introducing a huge amount of unique characters and loading the stories with plot twists. Director Steven Soderbergh showed with Out of Sight how to adapt Leonard's novel. Tarantino did the same with Jackie Brown and Barry Sonnenfeld delivered the fast-paced Get Shorty without losing track of the many characters and story.
Unfortunately, F. Gary Gray sometimes does lose control of his character-loaded film. He also keeps the movie less spicy than the other directors did. Be Cool is an okay, entertaining comedy thanks to the great acting performances but it's a bit too cool for my taste.
Written by Reggy 04/04/05
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