Be Cool

Be Cool - **

Coming from John Travolta, a man who's career is the very definition of bipolar, I suppose we can be very happy that he opted to make this film instead of Battlefield Earth 2. The star of films both fantastic and attrocious returns as Chili Palmer in Be Cool, the PG-13 sequel to the R rated 1995 film Get Shorty. The film's change of tone due to its rating is one of the biggest problems facing it. If we're crossing various forms of organized crime and use our MPAA assigned "fuck" on an industry inside joke within the opening minute and a half, how are audiences to identify? This, combined with one dimensional characters and a bit too much Travolta are what's wrong with Be Cool.

That being said, there are plenty of things that could have gone wrong with this film that didn't. It could have descended into 120 minutes of lame potty humour marketed to adults like "The Whole Ten Yards". It could have become a self-referential turd like "Analyze That". Hell, it almost certainly should have become a trainwreck of bad casting like "Mortal Combat: Annhilation" when the project called for a mostly new cast. It could have, but it didn't. As far as sequels go, this isn't bad. The humour is surprisingly high brow at points, and the opening scene is oddly reminiscent of another Travolta film, Pulp Fiction. Instead of relying too much on the original, this is essentially a new story with a new cast and a new set of cirumstances. The cast itself is well put together; while Andre Benjamin (Andre 3000 of Outkast) charms in his acting debut, the rest of the supporting cast including Vince Vaughn, The Rock, Christina Millian, Harvey Keitel and Cedric the Entertainor absolutely carry the film.

It seems like the good outweighs the bad here, and perhaps it does, but the bad is like an unerasable stain that just ruins the picture. John Travolta gets right into the character, as does his lead Uma Thurman as Edie Athens, but the characters bring nothing worthy to the table. In fact, they look to be quite thinly written whenever they're placed in close proximity to the awesome support cast. When we're more partial to the story's villain than the hero we can't possibly get the intended viewing experience. Unfortunately, "Be Cool" is a movie for no one but perhaps rabid fans of Vaughn, The Rock or the two leads. Thumbs down.