Scarecrow-88 Slick gangster music industry comedy has John Travolta as cool as the other side of the pillow (RIP Stuart Scott), returning as "reformed gangster" Chili Palmer from "Get Shorty", moving from producing movies to hoping he can establish a hot young singer (Christina Milian) as the next best thing. He'll have to dangle with her current numbskull agent (a sleazy Harvey Keitel), low level Russian gangsters, and a music producer known for his creative, inventive, and lucrative mixes (Cedric the Entertainer, entertaining as only he can). With Keitel employing a white gangsta wannabe (Vince Vaughn, totally involved in this part, in language and tone, in dress and mannerisms; this is all purposely over-the-top) and a gentle-natured, homosexual movie-star hopeful (The Rock, stealing the film when he's in it; complete with afro and easily bruised ego), he hopes to "influence" Chili into leaving his hot commodity alone. Meanwhile, Cedric demands money owed to him by the music company now owned by widow Uma Thurman, who has become romantically and professionally involved with Chili. This film has as good a comic cast as you could ask for. Even Robert Pastorelli (may he also rest in peace; it would be eye-opening if we just thought about all the great character actors we have lost in just the last ten years) and Debi Mazar (as a cop) show up in supporting parts. But I have to give mad props to André Benjamin, as a rather pathetic thug, employed for an always-embarrassed Cedric who gets annoyed by him all the time, particularly when they need to look badass. André's mishandling of a gun and his awareness in looking the part but failing to do so is comic gold. Cedric's monologue about African-American influence in American pop culture and way of life to a Russian mobster (with two black eyes thanks to Chili!) before shooting him is a definite highlight. Seeing Chili stare down guns pointed in his direction and always being able to avoid violence to his person gives him a major cool the film exploits; Travolta owns this part, and it is all his. The Rock's "Bring it On" monologue to Chili as a type of audition is quite amusing. Vaughn's scene with Pastorelli during a lunch over shooting the wrong man is hilarious as both are sizing each other up, with plenty of tension involved. Not in the same league as "Get Shorty" but not without its treats, "Be Cool" isn't a total loss. I prefer satires on the movie industry but Cedric and André are so much fun that I was plentiful entertained. While rated PG-13, this is as close to an R without being rated one that I can find.

jessegehrig This is a cold movie, a thing born of calculation and mechanisms in motion. It was not created by human hands but rather by large robotic engines that toil in an industrial area in southern California called Hollywood. Humanoid machines powered by chemical engines appear before an apparatus which captures light and motion and color. Standing outside the range of the camera's lens another humanoid machine issues commands to the humanoid machines standing within the camera's focus, based on this director's commands the actors attempt to comply. Alas the machines are clumsy and they have been programmed by inferior programmers, the code that propels these robots is both faulty and limited. In a factory this movie was manufactured, packaged and then distributed specifically for you to consume.

johnnyboyz "Everybody BE COOL. You, BE COOL." An early line from a memorable scene in a film that I really rather like, that being 1996's From Dusk Till Dawn. Clooney's demand was the crescendo to a series of threats directed at a petrified shop clerk outlining exactly what he expected from him in his behaviour as a state trooper messed about off screen in another room. The line was straight out of a script penned by Quentin Tarantino, with said feature released at a time when he was hitting the sorts of heights most American film-makers in the then-recent times could only dream of. Skip forward to early 2005, and the F. Gary Gray film entitled "Be Cool", an adaptation of a novel by Elmore Leonard of the same name which THINKS it's a film running on a Tarantino script, but in actual fact, is a bit of a turgid mess.John Travolta is back playing gangster gone-straight Chilli Palmer, a man whom has been working in the American film business out in L.A. for a good ten years following the conclusion of 1995's Get Shorty from whence this is a sequel. Palmer's been doing well, he's a legal businessman whom retains some of the old threatening abilities and criminally infused characteristics to help business tick by. But Palmer's become a little disenchanted with the industry; angry at new censorship rules and the manner in which Hollywood is so enthused in churning out good-for-nothing sequels, the likes of which end up allowing its smiling leads, in Danny De Vito's fictional actor Martin Weir, to fall out of nightclubs named things like 'The Viper' arm-in-arm with a hooker. De Vito occupies a prominent place on the film's poster: be aware this is all he has to do in the film. Frustrated, annoyed and somewhat eerily unperturbed following a near death encounter during a drive-by hit on music industry tycoon Tommy Athens (Woods), Palmer shifts careers and breezes into said business to get some fire back in his life.The film remains interesting for a while longer when he chances upon young Linda Moon (Milian) dancing in a club, a talented and promising singer whom struggles to make ends meet as she potters around in an old, beat up car as woefully vacuous gangsta' rap artists prevail monumentally in the intrepid rolling out of a new rap song every so often. After Moon makes such an impression on Palmer, he makes a move so as to remove her from a dead end contract with Vince Vaughn's ridiculous gangster-come-manager Raji and into his new set up with a company formerly run by drive-by victim Athens. Meanwhile, record producer Nick Carr (Keitel) is a sleazy, misogynist man inhabiting this sickly effective auditorium decked out in 1970s mise-en-scene from whence he constructs his sordid, commercialised ideas linked to girl groups. This is as good as it gets, with Gray's shifting of Palmer into the music industry not half as interesting as Levinson's shifting of him into the movie business - for those whom had a lukewarm reaction to Get Shorty, this speaks volumes.The best thing about Get Shorty was Dennis Farina's angry, loud mouthed Miami gangster Ray Barboni; the film sagging whenever he wasn't on screen involved in some of the film's funniest material. Who cold forget his tirade directed at a cab driver about local beaches? Here, there is no Farina: just a woeful Uma Thurman doing the worst rendition of a woman in a state of grieving probably ever put to film; a dull Dwayne Johnson playing homosexual bodyguard Elliot therefore acting as the butt of every homophobic joke you can think of and a character in Vince Vaughn's Raji so absurd and so unbelievable that we entrust his entire character as a mere act until he is dangled over the edge of a thirty storey balcony and yet retains both the voice; mannerisms and demeanour that he has done throughout up to this point - the joke was on us. The characters are ineffectual cartoons whom just happened to be inhabiting a world of hard boiled fiction; while the last time I saw Travolta and Keitel on screen together, they had a dead body on their hands and one was helping the other dispose of it in 1994's Pulp Fiction. No Winston Wolf clean up operation would ever be enough to bail everybody out of this mess. Additionally; there's a sad, knowing irony behind The Rock's presence. He's effectively playing himself, in that he's a struggling actor whom comes with a reputation and wants 'in' on the big time, although can only do really badly with an unflattering role he eventually gets: much like here. None of Gray's previous films have bothered me as much as Be Cool, arriving in the 90s from a career in music video production, about a twentieth of this film IS a music video. Recently I was lucky enough to have seen a British film from 2008 entitled Flashbacks of a Fool; the director was a certain Baillie Walsh, and himself came from a background directing music videos. Characters danced and sung together in that film, often in slow motion, but Walsh is a director whom knows when and where to apply such scenes so as to instill feeling and emotion therein, thus enabling them to resonate with the viewer. Gray appears to believe the sheer novelty of having Travolta and Thurman mincing around on a dance-floor during one sequence is enough to instill his film with a certain sense of something, when it just comes across as daft and intrepid. Oh how he, and all of those that enjoyed the film, are wrong. Be Cool crosses that line which separates intelligent pastiche from collective backslapping; the gags about rock stars making cameos and such are funny, but only to the makers of this whom are surely laughing unforgivably back at us.

Chrysanthepop Based on Elmore Leonard's novel, 'Be Cool' is an all around entertainer. Sequel to 'Get Shorty', Travolta is back as Chili Palmer and Danny Devito makes two cameo appearances. The rest of the fabulous cast includes the sensational Uma Thurman, a hilarious Vince Vaughn, Cedric the Entertainer, Andre Benjamin, Robert Pastorelli and Christina Milian. Harvey Keitel proves to be very good in comedy but the real surprise is Dwayne Johnson who shows a knack for being funny and probably has the funniest role. F. Gary Gray does a neat job. The jokes work excellently. The film is well-paced and the writing is consistent. Steinfeld does a good job of rewriting Leonard's book for the big screen. The humour works excellently. None of the jokes fall flat and the cast and crew seem to have had a blast making this film. It's a shame that the film wasn't as big a success as it's prequel. Frankly, I enjoyed it more than 'Get Shorty'. Above all, 'Be Cool' is a splendid entertainer that will draw loads of laughs.