Friday, March 04, 2005

"Be Cool": A Review

Be Cool be crap.

Somewhere in this mess is a story. There just has to be; after all, it's based on Elmore Leonard's 1999 sequel to his own Get Shorty, and so the movie boasts John Travolta reprising his role as one-time shylock Chili Palmer, a part he took up in Get Shorty's 1995 movie version. While that earlier work focused on Chili's foray into the movie industry, Be Cool finds our so-cool-he's-frozen-popsicle-bland protagonist drifting through the ooze of L.A.'s sleazy music biz.

And in either an unfortunate accident or a meta-ironic attempt to parrot that shallow world, Be Cool serves up a passel of tired caricatures, stale gags and self-congratulatory cameos (Aerosmith's Steven Tyler makes a particularly cringe-worthy appearance). There's a burly bodyguard who is gay and -- get this -- wants to be in movies! Yow-zah! Oh, and then there's a white guy who thinks he's a black guy! Hoo-boy! There's a Russian Mafiosi who sports a ... bad toupee! Tee-hee-hee! Oh, and then there's the gangsta rapper who's just itching to shoot someone! Knee-slappin' hoopa-hoopa funny!

Some of these hijinks are executed by some very talented folks, a fact that helps alleviate the sting somewhat. The Rock, Andre 3000 (from the hip-hop duo Outkast), Vince Vaughn and Cedric the Entertainer all shine in their respective roles -- especially The Rock (that's right, The Rock) -- until the one-dimensional shtick they are saddled with starts to wear thin. It doesn't take long for things to start wearing thin.

Others in this ensemble cast are less lucky. Christina Milian has the thankless role of the young musical talent whom impresario Chili takes under his wing and steers toward a record contract. (Will she make it? Take a guess.) Milian is relegated to several performances of synthetic R&B dross while Travolta and co-star Uma Thurman are told to sway their heads from side to side, caught up in the ecstasy of her vocal stylings and the realization that, yes, another scene is coming to a close.

To top things off, the Travolta-Uma duo must take to the dance floor for an ostensibly sexy dance number meant to recall the actual chemistry they once showed in Pulp Fiction. To steal an antiquated line from Lloyd Bentson: I know Pulp Fiction. I saw Pulp Fiction. And Be Cool, you are no Pulp Fiction.

Director F. Gary Gray is a competent, if unremarkable, director (The Italian Job proved that), and he does manage to keep Be Cool humming along and even intermittently entertaining.

But hell, intermittently entertaining just doesn't quite justify the cost of going to the movies nowadays.

Manohla Dargis' review in The New York Times is uncharacteristically dead-on.

3 Comments:

At 6:30 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, what can I say? My movies mirror my books... they're a lot of fun the first couple of times, but once you've seen/read one...

 
At 7:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Chase, you won't return my phone calls, so I have no choice but to bare my soul via your blog....
I'm MOSTLY straight (as I've indicated repeatedly on your voice mail), but I can't shake the urge to bury my face in Amy's blazer-clad chest during Weekend Update. So tell me - are we the tastiest duo in the history of SNL, or what?? If you respond, I'll tell you the story behind my mysterious, sexy, chin scar. CALL ME, you bastard!!
I'm sorry... I don't mean that... LOVE ME!!!

 
At 4:24 AM, Anonymous Andrea Salvi, Mperience Communication Manager said...

Dear Chase,
I contact you by comment because I didn’t find any other way to do it.

I would like to introduce to you Mperience (www. mperience.com), a web platform on which you can share in a brand new way movies, tv-series, music, art, and books. It also allows you to blend videos of artistic content with your own words, simply creating short stories called Memes that you can spread to a wide audience by a simple click.

As you can see, we have many themes in common with your blog and we would like to publish on Mperience some of your articles.
Actually we already inserted your post 'bout Be Cool on our page dedicated to http://www.mperience.com/view/Be_Cool

and so many others , as you can see, like your "Cinderella Man" and "Flightplan" reviews, for example...

If you want, you can put on your blog the Mperience’s reference, just copying and pasting a html code that I’ll give you in a second moment…

I hope that we could keep in touch and collaborate also in the future. So, if you are interested, please don’t hesitate to contact me for further information, questions or suggestions.

Andrea Salvi
Communication Manager
Mperience
andrea.salvi@mperience.com

 

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