...don’t expect it to be as good as GET SHORTY and you should be okay.
Be Cool (2005)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:165
Fresh:48
Rotten:117
Average Rating:4.6/10
Consensus: Be Cool is tepid, square, and lukewarm; as a parody of the music business, it has two left feet.
Runtime: 2 hrs
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: In this sequel to the 1995 mobster comedy GET SHORTY, John Travolta returns as Chili Palmer, a smooth-talking loanshark turned successful movie producer. But he's tired of the film industry, and so... In this sequel to the 1995 mobster comedy GET SHORTY, John Travolta returns as Chili Palmer, a smooth-talking loanshark turned successful movie producer. But he's tired of the film industry, and so he sets his sights on the music business, teaming up with music producer Edie (Uma Thurman)--the widow of a recently murdered colleague. Seeing great potential in an up-and-coming singer named Linda Moon (Christina Milian), Chili makes it his goal to rescue the young talent from her sleazy manager Raji (Vince Vaughn), and make her a star. But it doesn't take long for Chili to realize that in the music industry, not everybody plays by the rules. Combining organized crime and record label know-how as they infiltrate the music industry, Chili and Edie (Thurman) must free Moon from her contract with Raji and record label exec Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel), while fending off the Russian mafia and a whole slew of enemies, played by Cedric the Entertainer, and Andre Benjamin (of OutKast), among others. Director F. Gary Gray casts The Rock against type as Raji's flamboyant, aspiring-actor bodyguard, Elliot. In fact, the film's most humorous scene might be when Elliot breaks into Edie's home in order to show Chili a monologue from the film BRING IT ON. Overall, the film's tone is a self-referential one, established in the first five minutes by Chili's complaints over the nature of sequels and the PG-13 rating system itself. From here on out, the film's humor becomes more and more dependent on the audiences knowledge of all things pop culture, with a dance scene between Travolta and Thurman recalling their memorable pairing in PULP FICTION. [More]
Starring: Vince Vaughn, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer
Starring: Vince Vaughn, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Cedric the Entertainer, Steven Tyler, Christina Milian, Harvey Keitel, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Danny DeVito, Robert Pastorelli, Paul Adelstein, James Woods, André Benjamin
Director: F. Gary Gray
Director: F. Gary Gray
Screenwriter: Peter Steinfeld
Producer: Danny DeVito, Stacey Sher, Michael Shamberg, David A. Nicksay
Composer: John Powell
Studio: MGM/UA
Reviews for Be Cool
Be Cool ... should leave you in stitches. Unless, of course, you're one of those anti-discriminatory humour kind of people. You know who you are.
They'll look look longingly at the screen, silently willing the movie to Be cool! Be funny! At least be somewhat interesting! And the hopes will go unfulfilled.
Painful to sit through. Except for Travolta & Thurman’s dance, this is awful. Product placement everywhere and only Aerosmith’s Joe Perry & The Rock keep their dignity.
has been manufactured to the hilt to appeal to all demographics yet entertains none
doesn’t capture much of what’s really cool in Elmore Leonard’s novel, but there’s no denying that “Be Cool” provides some very funny, very entertaining moments.
It should be a rule of filmmaking that when the plot fizzles out, the film should end
The kind of sequel that gives sequels a bad name — a bland, lifeless, uninspired cash-in with an assembly-line script and a sleepwalking star.
Ultra-smooth ex-gangster Chili Palmer returns to the screen after a decade's absence and the audience gets whacked...an unmitigated disaster.
Be Cool is not really cool as Get Shorty was, but it's entertaining, a frivolous cocktail rather than a vintage wine.
Be Cool is anything but. A follow-up to the charming comedy Get Shorty, it’s one of the weakest sequels in recent memory.
Latest News for Be Cool
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