Get Shorty (1995)

A Disappointing Continuation

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Get Shorty has a pretty sweet set-up. A loanshark mobster named Chili Palmer (John Travolta) has to travel from Miami to Los Angeles in order to collect a debt for his new boss. There he finds out that the movie business doesn't really differ all that much from what he has done successfully all his life, and thus he decides to produce a movie while he's at it. Very nice idea. Just exaggerated enough that no one will take it too seriously and the jokes practically write themselves.Which makes it all the more baffling that I didn't really laugh while watching the film. I enjoyed its plot a lot, but its humour didn't connect with me at all. I enjoyed the suaveness of John Travolta and all his serious scenes a lot more than I enjoyed any of the jokes the script had him say every once in a while. And that's basically the movie in a nutshell. It has a really good cast of actors, all of them charismatic and able to play their characters to perfection, but the script doesn't give them all that much to work with, meaning that they're not all that funny. Perhaps this would have worked better as a drama film with a humorous undertone. More drama than comedy, whereas in this case it's the other way around.Then again, perhaps it's just me. I've heard a lot of people say that this is a really funny film, so it might just be that it's not my cup of tea. Wouldn't be the first time when it comes to comedies. And, as stated, the film works very well as a story about a mobster that decides to do Hollywood. The characters are interesting, the various plot twists are just convoluted enough and the plot has a good structure.All in all I have to rate the film as just slightly below average because for me it doesn't work as a comedy. Still, definitely worth a watch if you're more omnivorous when it comes to comedies, because even if the humour doesn't hit you, at least you'll get a pretty decent mobster film out of it.

Such a silly movie with a silly plot, silly characters and silly dialogs.But I never enjoyed a movie more, and never before was I so engrossed in watching John Travolta on the screen.Truly the difference is in the acting.Travolta single-handedly turns this silly movie into a delightful movie.Its a Travolta show all the way. All the other actors would have sunk with the movie if it had not been for 'Chili Palmer'.Travolta proves he is a brilliant actor. He actually manages to show that a brilliant actor needs absolutely no support but can actually sustain a movie on his own.No other actor has been able to do this, ever.

John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, David Paymer and Dennis Farina star in this 1995 comedy based on the novel. This focuses on Miami Loan-shark, Chili Palmer (Travolta) who decides to go into the movie business after he's sent to L.A. to collect a debt from producer, Harry Zimm (Hackman). Chili works with Harry on a script based on actual events of goofy dry-cleaner, Leo (Paymer) who scammed $300.000 off an airline he miraculously survived from. There's also a bag full of drug money hidden in an airport locker that becomes eyed by Chili and others. Russo (Major League) plays actress, Karen Flores who falls for Chili, DeVito (Throw Momma from the Train) plays her ex-husband & actor, Martin Weir, Lindo (Ransom) plays Harry's crooked investor, Bo Catlin who wants to work on Harry's new script, the late, Farina (Manhunter) plays Miami collector, Ray "Bones" Barboni who doesn't get along with Chili and the late, Gandolfini (The Sopranos) plays Bo's associate, Bear who is an actor/stuntman. This is a good, entertaining film with a great cast I recommend.

I just heard an interview with Doug Ellin - I guess he watched this movie 200 times. I like Entourage, so I figured I'd watch this movie again if he likes it THAT much. I probably saw it 16 years ago, but I don't remember much of it.It was entertaining, but it felt extremely derivative of Pulp Fiction in style, characters, casting, even performance. John Travolta's character here is just too close. The problem here is that Pulp Fiction is such a superior movie, this just felt like a "me too" type flick...plus Pulp Fiction came out only 1-2 years before. I'm just not sure how you could watch this and not think of Pulp Fiction the whole time.Nerd Nit-pick - James Gandolfini throwing the screws from the railing after killing the Delroy Lindo character seemed kind of ridiculous, especially after they just tried to be so "smart" about forensics in a previous scene where Gene Hackman was made to fire Dennis Farina's gun. Gandolfini's prints would be on the screws, the screws/railing wood wouldn't show fracture/tears, and removing top little wood piece on the railing wasn't really necessary to push someone over it. Kind of a big scene and pivotal plot moment not be thought through a bit more...I wonder if the novel was this careless.