Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is a cool character, as cool as you can get. He wears a cool leather jacket, he can handle his fists or a gun, and when he is collecting money from people who owe him, he doesn't get upset at the little things. He is, however, getting tired of the life of a small-time loan shark, taking orders from jerks like “Bones” Barboni (Dennis Farina). When a collection job takes him to L.A. and the living room of a Hollywood producer, even a B-movie producer like Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), Chili senses a chance to break into a better line of work. Chili pitches his own story to Harry as a movie idea, and just like that, Chili finds himself in the movie business, which turns out to be not so different from the loan-shark business.
As a character, Chili is too good to be true, always cool and collected, a total bad-ass, but still a gentleman. This gangster comedy works because of all the other kooky characters, including the gangsters and movie producers, as well as Rene Russo as a sexy scream-queen actress and Danny DeVito as an unlikely leading man. Director Barry Sonenfeld also gets excellent supporting turns from James Gandolfini and Delroy Lindo.
“Get Shorty” is based on the Elroy Leonard novel of the same name. It holds up well to repeat viewings, and while it isn't the peak of Elroy Leonard adaptions (That title goes to “Jackie Brown”), it's a fun parody of a Hollywood culture where everyone has a screenplay in their back pocket.
4 stars out of 5
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