Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home Culture

BE COOL

byStaff writers
17 April 2005
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Starring: John Travolta, Uma Thurman, The Rock, Harvey Keitel
Director: F. Gary Gray
Rated: M15+

ANOTHER sequel, Be Cool, fails to satisfy because inventiveness has been replaced by self-conscious in-jokes and parodies that no longer seem fresh or funny.

Be Cool was written by Elmore Leonard as a sequel to his hard-boiled novel Get Shorty, which became a cult hit when it was adapted to the screen in 1995.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and produced by Danny DeVito, Get Shorty put a new spin on gangster movies, and in the wake of Quentin Tarantino’s brilliant but controversial Pulp Fiction, helped rejuvenate John Travolta’s faltering career.

In Get Shorty, Travolta played a cinema-literate loan shark and mobster, Chili Palmer, who in the process of collecting a debt from a small time Hollywood producer Martin Weir (DeVito), becomes a movie producer himself.

In Be Cool, Travolta reprises the role of Chili, with the joke being that this time round while recovering a debt from the owner of a small independent record company called Nothing To Lose, Chili segues just as smoothly into the cut-throat world of Los Angeles’ highly competitive music industry.

The story centres on Chili’s efforts to launch his newly acquired record label with the help of Tony Athens’ glamorous widow, Edie (Uma Thurman), and to do this Chili purloins a young black singer, Linda Moon (pop star Christina Milian) from the stable of rival mobster Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel), who employs bumbling Russian Mafiosi to fend off poachers on his patch.

The screenplay is awash with colourful characters, and the stellar cast tries hard to please.

Some play themselves, like Aerosmith’s ageing Steven Tyler (the father of Liv), and Gene Simmons of Kiss.

But best of all is Keitel, who eschews caricature and opts for naturalism.

Related Stories

Cardinal Joseph Zen appears in court in Hong Kong on day of prayer for China

15 killed in Texas school shooting

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

Cedric the Entertainer is amusing as the mobster Sin LaSalle, a black Tony Soprano from the suburbs with a wife and kids, while The Rock (The Scorpion King) camps it up as a gay bodyguard busting to break into Show Biz.

Music star Andre Benjamin shows comic timing as Dabu, Sin’s trigger happy side-kick, and there are glimpses of DeVito as Weir living it up with a succession of Hollywood bimbos.

The most disappointing performances come from the more established stars, Vince Vaughn as Carr’s partner Raji, and Travolta and Thurman, whose attempt to pay homage to Pulp Fiction in a dance sequence looks clumsy and under-rehearsed.

The responsibility for this lies with Gray (The Italian Job, 2003) whose direction is laboured and pedestrian.

Be Cool no doubt reads well on the page, but bringing it to the screen with imagination seems another matter entirely.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

LADIES IN LAVENDER

Next Post

Need for a new Good Shepherd

Staff writers

Related Posts

Hong Kong
World

Cardinal Joseph Zen appears in court in Hong Kong on day of prayer for China

25 May 2022
15 killed in Texas school shooting
News

15 killed in Texas school shooting

25 May 2022
Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”
News

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

24 May 2022
Next Post

Need for a new Good Shepherd

Conclave's choice

How conclave works

Popular News

  • Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

    US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • From a humble start Albanese is sworn in as new prime minister

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • 15 killed in Texas school shooting

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Hong Kong
World

Cardinal Joseph Zen appears in court in Hong Kong on day of prayer for China

by Staff writers
25 May 2022
0

CARDINAL Joseph Zen appeared in court in Hong Kong on Tuesday, a date which is the World...

15 killed in Texas school shooting

15 killed in Texas school shooting

25 May 2022
Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

Archbishop calls for prayers in “troubled times”

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village

24 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping