Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Christina Milian, Steven Tyler, James Woods, Cedric The Entertainer, Harvey Keitel, Vince Vaughn, Dwayne Johnson, Andre Benjamin
Be Cool is the sequel to Get Shorty (1995) and follows Chili Palmer (Travolta) from the movie business to the music business. Those looking for the same energy and sly fun in Be Cool that existed in Get Shorty are in for a disappointing time. Travolta's Palmer in Get Shorty was able to remain unflappable and cool as Hollywood bigwigs and criminals attempted to outmuscle him, but in Be Cool this unflappability is taken to unrealistic extremes. Palmer has zero reaction to a gun being pointed at his head. Maybe he thinks it's a water pistol or he has looked at the script in advance and knows the guy pointing it won't pull the trigger. If he doesn't take it seriously, why should we? Come to think of it, Chili does not seem to have a reaction to anything. He could be made an honorary Blues Brother.
Looking like he spent the ten years between Get Shorty and Be Cool under a tanning lamp 24-7, Palmer starts out having lunch with Tommy (Woods), an executive for a failing record company who is shot dead by a Russian mobster with a bad toupee. Palmer's car is shot up too, but he doesn't express even the slightest dismay over his friend or car getting shot in front of him. Life goes on for the ever-cool Palmer, who along with Tommy's widow Edie (Thurman), attempts to save the record company from financial ruin and pay off guys like Sin LaSalle (Cedric The Entertainer) to whom Tommy owed $300,000. Edie does not seem much moved that her husband was killed either. They may be crying on the inside types.
To save the company, Chili befriends an up-and-coming singer stuck in a bad five-year contract with a sleazeball manager named Nick Carr (Keitel) and his partner Raji (Vaughn), who is most definitely white but speaks, walks, and dresses hip-hop. This may sound funny in theory, but in practice it is not. Raji's bodyguard is Elliot (Johnson), a seemingly gay man who would rather be a movie star than a bodyguard and is easily swayed by Chili's attempts at flattery and promises of an audition. Chili unilaterally terminates the singer's contract and within 48 hours books her as the opening act for Aerosmith. This prompts a cameo appearance by Steven Tyler as himself. The singer, Linda Moon (Milian) performs an onstage duet of Aerosmith's Crazy with Tyler and becomes a star quicker than Neil Diamond did in The Jazz Singer. Who needs American Idol when you have Chili Palmer?
There are alliances and feuds formed between Chili and Nick, Chili and Sin, Sin and the Russians, Sin and Nick, Raji and Chili, etc. etc. It is all just boring. Linda belts out a few numbers just enough to show what all the fuss is about her, but she is more like a human pinball being bounced around between all of the players involved. Be Cool is a movie crowded with stars, subplots, and plenty of in-jokes that worked better in Get Shorty. It is busy and noisy, but goes nowhere. Vaughn, Johnson, and Andre Benjamin as Sin's dopey right hand man try to inject life into things, but they are swimming against the current. Travolta and Thurman try to rekindle the chemistry from Pulp Fiction, but they can't. They become lovers (only days after Thurman lost her husband mind you), but I think she and Elliott might be a more convincing couple.
Other than a few quick reminders and a cameo by Danny DeVito, Get Shorty is mostly forgotten in Be Cool. Gene Hackman, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, Dennis Farina, and Rene Russo did not return for the sequel. But even their presences might have been more excessive than welcome in a movie that is already stretched way too thin with nonsense. And someone ought to tell Chili that cigarettes are expensive. He has taken on the Andrew Dice Clay method of smoking, in which he lights up, holds the cigarette gingerly, inhales once, and then throws it away. Cigarettes are an even more expensive habit when you chuck them after one puff.
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