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Movie Review - Be Cool (2005)
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(What this rating means)
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| Director: |
F. Gary Gray |
| Starring: |
John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, The Rock, and Christina Milian |
| Rated: |
PG-13 (for violence, sensuality, and language including sexual references) |
| Length: |
118 minutes |
| Genre: |
Comedy/Crime |
| Tagline: |
Everyone is looking for the next big hit |
| Studio: |
MGM |
| Website: |
Be Cool |
| Release: |
March 4, 2005 |
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PLOT
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I guess this is a "sequel" to Get Shorty but I never saw that. I'll go with it though.
Just before Tommy Athens (James Woods) is gunned down by the vengeful Russian mafia, he points Chili
Palmer (Travolta) towards a starlet diva in the making, Linda Moon (Milian). Travolta steals Linda Moon
from the clutches of her incompetent gangsta-wannabe manager, Ragi (which he thinks is gangsta for Roger,
Vaughn) and his flaming bodyguard (the Rock), and teams up with Tommy's widow Edie (Thurman) to help her
run the record label that her late husband had driven into some dangerous debt with Sin LaSalle (Cedric).
The plan is to launch the young diva into immediate stardom using all their connections and pay off the
thugs. Along the way, Chili slyly manipulates the many forces looking for a piece of him and the record
label (LaSalle, Russians, Ragi and Carr (Harvey Kietel)) to come out magnificently on top. Many, many
laugh-out-loud funny scenes ensue.
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MS. ANG'S TAKE
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(thank you, dear husband, for helping me condense the plot)
A clever, witty, classy satire. At least, that's what we thought. I've read some comments on IMDb that if
you liked Get Shorty, you will hate this movie, and others who said they liked both. Que sera, \
sera.
I don't think I've laughed out loud so much at a movie in... I don't know how long. John Travolta's orange
tan, the way they made fun of sequels and movie ratings - in the opening scene, Chili explains that in a
PG-13 movie, you're only allowed to say the "F word" once. He then says "*F* them. I'm done," thereby using
up his one usage. That's the kind of stuff liberally thrown in here.
Besides a few, brief moments of "I don't care-dom" (hey - that should be a new Dictionary term! It means it's
not really boring; it's just not grabbing me. Get on with other stuff soon, please) involving the Russians
and Cedric's thugs (who were supposed to be some hip-hop group), the movie was almost non-stop laughs. But
please, don't let my tastes keep you from seeing the movie. This is the girl who has fallen asleep during
the same ten climactic minutes of Snatch every time I've tried to watch it. I've still never seen
those ten minutes.
Mr. Ang: Two of the funniest moments involved a strange chair in
Edie's house that no one quite managed to sit in comfortably. The word of the day is: awkward.
True to Guy form, I enjoyed the scenes in which Chili "took care of business" suavely and efficiently.
Always in control.
(Subliminal message moment/shameless plug: you should watch "Invader Zim")
The Rock's character was supposed to be gay, and although all the other characters had a fun time calling
him slang names, he really didn't act that flaming. He was hilarious in every scene, though, especially
when the movie was making fun of his "eyebrow trick." I'm really starting to like him as an actor. There
was one particularly great scene with Vince Vaughn and The Rock yelling at each other and chasing each
other around a car. I don't have any idea what they were saying, I was laughing too much.
Just when I thought the movie was wrapping up, it kept pulling a few more tricks out of the bag. It wasn't
a bad thing, because they were all good. But thinking about that reminded me of the song "It's Not the End"
by Matthew West. At the end of his song he sings:
And it's not the end ... Well it's almost the end ... I guess you could say it's nearing the end ...
But it's not the end ... It's not the end ... It's not the end ... It's almost the end ... Ok I think it's
the end ...
And so here's my END: Travolta is slick, Thurman is cute, everyone is funny, The Rock is hilarious, and
aside from looking too much like Raven, Christina Milian did very well in her role.
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ODDS & ENDS
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- Before the movie we saw a preview for a movie with Kevin Bacon, who was in Hollow Man with
Josh Brolin.
- John Travolta suggested Uma Thurman for the role of Edie, wanting to re-create their chemistry from
Pulp Fiction all over again. (From IMDb)
- Watch the end for Vince Vaughn's "Flaming Man Dance."
- At the end, The Rock gets to do some traditional Samoan dancing.
- John Travolta was in Basic with Giovanni Ribisi who was in The Mod Squad with Josh
Brolin who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.
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MAMA'S APPROVAL
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Well... there's some violence and some threats and lots of guns, and a little of language (though only that
one F word), so it's probably a good idea to stick to the rating. Probably people under 14 or 15 wouldn't
think it's funny anyway.
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TRAILER COMPARISON
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After viewing the trailer (once) I was pretty convinced I would enjoy the movie, and I did. It gives a
pretty good taste of the style and content of the movie, without putting ALL the good lines in the trailer.
There are lots of good ones shown, but believe me, there are many more good moments and lines waiting for
you.
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THE GIST
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Be Cool has a great balance of everything to keep the movie fresh and amusing, and doesn't miss too
many opportunities to laugh at itself, or its actors, or the fact that it's a sequel, or bad toupees, or
Honda Insights, or strange furniture. The best truly funny, laugh-out-loud movie I've seen in a very long
time.
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