Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Spoonatects Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

bkoganbing Years ago George Raft who hung around so many mobsters in real life was asked whether he preferred the wise guys or Hollywood. Without a hesitation the man who played so many gangsters so well because he hung around them so much and it just rubbed off said that he preferred Ben Seigel to Harry Cohn. He never had a mobster go back on his word to him.John Travolta probably studied that bit of wisdom from Raft, I'm surprised no Raft clips are in Get Shorty. Travolta plays a collector of debts and right now he's to get about $300,000.00 from producer Gene Hackman. But one look at Travolta and a star could be born.There's also a schlepp who ran off with that amount and is thought to be dead in a plane crash. And some Columbians who are looking for some money they are owed for drugs. All three of these elements are woven rather nicely together in a nice black comedy.And the girl Travolta is aiming for, Rene Russo star of the B picture horror schlock that Hackman produces. Shorty of the title could only be Danny DeVito who spends a lot further than his latest salary will take him.My favorite scenes are when heavies Delroy Lindo and Dennis Farina both get some justice. Travolta and Farina don't like each other, but what happens to Farina is truly poetic.In fact they put into pictures.

John Brooks Why people love it ? Because they feel acting alone is an argument as to a film's quality. Add snappy pseudo-witty dialog, the criminal mob type environment, and as mentioned a good cast of actors and voila. Easy.But really, here's the thing. Relying entirely on the complicated network that is the plot alone, does not make for an effectively good story, or film. Picking up a piece of paper and writing a bunch of different vapid characters with different arbitrary incentives and mixing them all up together without any ultimate moral or any genuine meaning, does not make you a story-writing genius. At all.Structurally, this film is random, the scenes interchangeable. The events just pile on, and yet it feels so immensely linear and uneventful. It's like the film is so dead, and drags on, no action could possibly finally get it going ! It's boring to death, and it never finally picks up.The details are often stupid, and the film relies A LOT on totally convenient details to move on at all. The naivety of a character, the stupidity of another...this is just gratuitous mob-comedy like it was written by amateurs or something.This is more of the same: random tough guy talk, redundant scenes like the guy secretly waiting in the dark at someone's place, the remote killing that makes little to no sense, relying on a character's very particular reaction...And in such films, as the viewer you at least have something big to look forward to at the end, like a twist or a big prize or something special that catches you off-guard and puts the whole picture into perspective... here, nothing. Nothing at all. Boring, boring, boring ! 3/10.

SnoopyStyle Chili Palmer (John Travolta) works for the mob. He's volatile, intense, and extremely street smart. When Ray Barboni (Dennis Farina) takes Chili's coat, he promptly punches Ray in the face to get his coat back. Too bad for Chili, his boss dies and he has to work for Ray's crew. He's collecting from producer Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), and ends up getting into the world of movie making.This is from an Elmore Leonard novel, and the sharply written characters are a testament to that. Whether it's Leonard's words, the top actors, or the flash of Hollywood. There's an artificial sense. It's light. It's breezy. It's jazzy. The movie is having lots of fun. It makes for a cute movie.

david-sarkies Now what does one make of this rather strange movie. What is the plot and if there is a plot, what is it? Get Shorty is not a mindless action flick, that is not what I am referring to when I am asking about a plot. Most action flicks generally have a plot, even though they are probably extremely shallow. Get Shorty, on the other hand, has a rather strange plot with some even stranger events.Chilli (John Travolta) is a loan shark who has been upset by another mafia boss in Miami named Ray Babone (Hal Linden). Chilli breaks Babone's nose and then shoots him just to let him know that he is not in the mood to be pushed around. Unfortunately Chilli's boss, Momo, dies in Brooklyn when he walks into a surprise party and has a heart attack. Babone then convinces him to go to Los Angeles to chase a laundry operator who owes him $300,000 after he allegedly died in a airplane crash. When Chilli gets to Los Angeles he is also asked by somebody in Las Vegas to get some money from a movie producer (Gene Hackman). When he breaks into the producer's house, he is struck with the movie making bug and decides that the current events would make a good movie. Thus he begins to try to drum up interest, mostly from a famous actor named Martin Wier (Danny DeVito) and gets involved with Wier's ex-wife who is an actress (Rene Ruso). Meanwhile another loan shark is after the producer for money that was lost at a casino.Pretty twisting little plot I thought and there were some quite funny scenes in the movie. It is the twisting plot that makes this movie shine. The major thing with the movie is a satirical look at Hollywood and the loansharking business. All of the films mentioned have really corny names suggesting the meaninglessness of the movies that are made. It is also shown as a bug that influences everybody that comes into the scene. Chilli and the LA loanshark are both caught by the producing bug and want to get into the film industry. Martin Wier is a typical actor and his personality is also satirised. He is shown Chilli's rent-a-car and decides that he likes it so much that he buys one himself. When they are having lunch, he orders everything for everybody and eats none of it suggesting that the actor always wants to be in control of the movie, even though it is the producer and the director that run the show. Then there is the ending where Ray Babone goes to the locker at LA airport and is caught by the DEA agents. This is twisted around in the film being made replacing the agents with Chilli, somebody much shorter, and a bad imitation of Babone. This goes to show the delusion that Hollywood creates. In a true story, the people become vague caricatures of the people that they are based upon, and are twisted to allow the famous actors to take the spot. Martin Wier is nothing like Chilli yet Chilli knows that to capture an audience, one must turn to a famous face.Then there is the film studio ending, the removal of the veil that shrouds Hollywood. It is revealed that all it is is a movie and any bad ending is meaningless because the antagonist is only an actor who walks away afterwards. No matter how evil this bad guy is and no matter how much he is hated, what happens in the movie is only an illusion. The bad guy is only an actor and his apparent death is just some ploy shot in front of the camera. In the end, they will all pack up and go home.Thus Get Shorty is a very intelligent and satirical movie. The bad guys are not threatening, but rather a caricature of the typical Hollywood villain. The movie is focused entirely on Chilli who is fearless and able to bend even the most intimidating person to his will. The most outstanding part of this movie is Gene Hackman's role. When I do not recognise the actor then that actor is doing a very good job. This was the case with Ed Harris in The Truman Show, and it is the case in this movie. Hackman has a famous face, yet it was a face that I did not recognise in this film.