Talk about "Get Shorty" here:
Review by: Breanne Derby
Plot Summary
Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is a mobster who is sent to
Los Angeles to retrieve 300,000 dollars from Leo Devoe, the former owner of a drycleaner who fled Miami to avoid The Mob. When he arrives in Los Angeles, however, Chili meets Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), a movie producer. Chili decides to try and assist Zimm in producing a film, and in the process, decides that he might like to go into the moviemaking business himself, assuming that it would be a nice break from life as a member of the mob. However, Chili soon finds that the film industry isn't all that different from mob life, as he is chased through the film by an abundance of "bad guys."
Review
This film was reasonably entertaining, though not a side-splitting good time. There were some amusing parts (e.g. "I once asked this literary agent what kind of writing paid the best, he said a ransom note"). It was rather fun as far as action movies go, and it didn't take itself too seriously, which added to the humor.
There were consistently new twists arising in the plot at every moment. Characters were constantly being added and taken away, and the viewer has to keep up. If one was to take a bathroom break during the film, had a fairly good chance of coming back not knowing what was going on. Countless fights take place, all the while John Travolta walks through the scenes as Chili Palmer, cool as ice.
The characters in this film each have very well developed histories. The audience knows their life story, and has a background as to what each person does for a living, and what they have accomplished in their lives, but at the same time, the characters are barely emotionally developed at all. The audience does not develop an attachment to any of the characters, and they are shallow as far as feelings go, but deep in personal history. There are a lot of characters traveling in and out of the storyline, and with this many characters, it is good to quickly develop a history, but it would be better if some emotion towards the character from the audience could be formed.
Unfortunately, this film is much like having the exact same scene strung together about a dozen times. So many similar scenes take place that, reflecting on it, it is difficult to differentiate where each one happened, and who ended up getting beat-up by Chili Palmer.
Conclusion
I didn't really think that this film was an earthshaking step forward in the ways of filmmaking, in-fact, I didn't even really think it was above average. It seemed like a sad attempt for John Travolta and Danny DeVito, a pair of actors who debuted in the 1970s, to try and convince the world (quite probably the younger crowd) that they are still cool twenty-something years later.
The biggest letdown about this movie was the ending. I'm not going to spoil it for the people who haven't seen the film, but after the credits rolled, I was still left with questions as to how the movie really ended, and I did not like that the audience was left to their own devices to try and figure out what happened. If I wanted to try and figure out what had happened I would be doing a riddle, not watching a movie. The whole point of watching a movie is so that A. you don't have to read, and B. everything is spelled out for you with moving people and colorful scenery. I thought that for a film that was incredibly straightforward throughout the body, the ending was particularly vague, and I was bothered by it.
