"Be Cool"
Movie Review
by Kevin Carr
| ** (out of 5 stars) STARRING John Travolta as CHILI PALMER Uma Thurman as EDIE ATHENS Vince Vaughn as RAJI Cedric the Entertainer as SIN LASALLE Andre Benjamin as DABU Christina Milian as LINDA MOON Harvey Keitel as NICK CARR Rated PG-13 Opens March 4, 2005 Studio: MGM Directed by: F. Gary Gray Back to Movie Review Home |
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"Be Cool" Is Benign
I was never really enamoured with 1995’s "Get Shorty," but I do understand its charm. Featuring John Travolta as Chili Palmer, a wily loan shark turned wannabe movie producer, Gene Hackman as flighty producer Harry Zimm, Rene Russo as B-movie bombshell Karen Flores, and Danny Devito as the witless screen star Martin Weir, the film was a playful “wink and a slap”, mixing rather matter-of-factly the mob and Hollywood’s moviemaking elite. It was clever, cool, and comical, some of the most difficult traits to recapture in a sequel. Nevertheless, after a decade long wait, Be Cool attempts to do just that. Sadly, however, this star-saturated satire is merely a bastardized version of the original, perhaps heavier on conventional laughs but far more hollow in effect.
The "Be Cool" storyline remains similar to the original, except this time Chili foregoes Tinseltown to troll the back alleys of the music industry. Flanked by his newly deceased friend’s widow (played by Uma Thurman), he eyes Linda Moon (Christina Milan), a soul-singing sex bomb leading a boy-toy girl band known as known The Chicks. When he strong-arms her away from her misfit promoter Raji (Vince Vaughn) and his gay bodyguard Elliot (The Rock), tempers begin to flare. Matters complicate further when an angry music producer (played by Cedric the Entertainer) comes to collect an unpaid debt, leaving Chili knee deep in another grand predicament.
Despite such promising groundwork, "Be Cool"’s attempt to reinvent the panache of "Get Shorty" turns the film into a farce in the truest sense of the word. Sure, the veneer looks the same; the proposed courtship of the entertainment industry and corruption, the Mafioso-styled scheming, the eye-teasing females (including some wildly exploratory angles), and Chili’s continued transportation problems, but underneath, it’s all wrong.
We encounter a number of disruptive interludes, including street dancing clans (complete with war paint) and windy piano sonnets by a howling Milan. Neither Travolta, who plays Chili with only half the charisma and edge of his first outing, or Thurman, whose acting skills seem to ebb and flow with each scene, show any real chemistry, romantic or otherwise. The sure-to-be-sizzling dance scene, nostalgically reminiscent of their tango in "Pulp Fiction," slumps, and even gets overshadowed by the soulish rhythms of the Black-Eyed Peas. With these and many more out of place antics, the film fails to revive the slick smarts of the original, mustering only a narcoleptic silence in its place.
Although "Be Cool" often jabs with subtle humor, it rarely connects. More often than not, good old-fashioned wholesale stupidity brings the biggest laughs. Most of the comedy is provided by Vaughn and The Rock’s outrageously ridiculous characters. Vaughn should win an Oscar for his role as a fast-talking, slang-slinging, bling-bling clad, imitation black man and wannabe pimp. His non-stop buffoonery, coupled with his tendency to get himself into real trouble with true thugs is, at times, jaw-dropping funny. The Rock is his perfect complement, an afro-wearing effeminate with a starstruck naivete that leads to some hilarious situations. Cedric the Entertainer and Andree 3000 (of Outkast) also have their moments, delivering laughs as an uppity family man who leads a posse of gangsters and an idiotic triggerman respectively.
For all its sloshing and star power, "Be Cool" is a surprisingly benign movie. It lands squarely on the bad side of being just an “ok” film. It has enough silly frolicking to keep you interested, but other than that, there simply isn’t much more to hold onto.
