Films like “Be Cool” are enough to drive any movie fan crazy.
They have the potential to be smart, over-the-top and anti-Hollywood, but just end up too distracted and too afraid to actually challenge Tinseltown stereotypes.
“Be Cool” is the sequel to 1995’s “Get Shorty,” a film about a gangster named Chili Palmer (John Travolta) who makes it big in Hollywood as a producer. In the sequel, the aforementioned Palmer is starting to have second thoughts about his career in film. He is tired of putting up with all the commercialism, hype and egoism of the film world and wants out soon.
His decision is made for him while attending a lunch meeting with his friend and record label owner Tommy Athens (James Woods). Athens is gunned down by the Russian mob while Palmer is inside the restaurant.
Having seen the killer’s face. Palmer is now a marked man. Unable to stay out of trouble, Palmer makes his situation worse by teaming up with Athens’ wife Edie (Uma Thurman) in hopes of saving his former friend’s record label.
Palmer, new to the music industry and unaware of how proper transactions work, comes across a young singer named Linda Moon (Christina Milian) and steals her away from her label, run by Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) and her manager Raji (Vince Vaughn).
His troubles increase when he finds out that Athens, owes $300,000 to Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer), a highly influential producer. Now that Athens is dead, LaSalle wants his money. However, Athens left his record label broke.
Now Palmer must figure out how to pay LaSalle back before he and his hit rap group WMD, led by trigger-happy Dabu (André Benjamin, a.k.a. André 3000 of Outkast), decide to use their own form of payment.
Throw in Robert Pastorelli playing an idiotic hit man named Joe Loop and Raji’s gay bodyguard Elliot Wilhelm (The Rock), and you have one large, lack-luster cast assembled on screen. (This does not count all the additional characters and cameos, that pop up throughout the film.)
This is what “Be Cool” is, an orgy of popular culture thrown onto the screen with no true direction and the lack of testicular-fortitude to actually carry through with its attack on Hollywood lifestyles.
Much of “Be Cool’s” humor relies on the absurdity of its characters and their lifestyles. The film shows Hollywood as a giant ridiculous world where ridiculous people do ridiculous things. It’s a place where people pay top-dollar for flashy cars and designer clothes and dine at only the best restaurants.
According to this film, Hollywood is the “Mecca of cool” for the world, and whatever Hollywood senses is hip becomes gospel.
Therein lies the film’s fatal flaw.
Since this film was made by Hollywood about Hollywood, it never actually reaches its potential. Instead of showing Hollywood as a laughable place, the movie embraces it. Sure, it pokes fun at itself, but it never actually exposes itself. In other words, “you can make fun of us, you just better not mean it.”
This is why “Be Cool” is aggravating. It is a good idea, but no one is willing to go all the way with it. Director F. Gary Gray mimics shots from directors Quentin Tarantino, Stephen Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese. Sometimes he exaggerates them to show how they have become the epitome of the American cinema experience, but never to a drastic point that actually shows the directors are self-indulgent.
Unfortunately, these varied shots are the only form of direction in the film. The rest of the story jumps from scene to scene with no guidance. There is no true substance holding the film together, with one exception: It had the potential to be much better.
The cast never truly molds. Travolta just seems to be there because he is replaying a role. Thurman’s character is boring. Vaughn is annoying, (which is what he is supposed to be) but not funny (which is also what he is supposed to be). Keitel simply looks tired.
The only actors who even come off as having any fun at all are the three guys who go by nicknames. The Rock, Cedric the Entertainer and André 3000 all bring a sense of freshness to the screen. These are not Hollywood actors and they do not try to be. They do not care who they offend in Hollywood so they go ahead and act as “Hollywood” as they feel like.
“Be Cool” is not a bad movie, but it is not a good movie either. It is a frustrating movie that points out the gluttony, racism, hypocrisy, ugliness, and ridiculous nature of movie-making in America. It just did not have the right people making it.
