“Get Shorty”: Cool under Fire
Get Shorty
1995 Director: Barry Sonnenfeld.
Starring: John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina
Sometimes I forget how much I like this film. It’s not just the twists and turns in the story, its witty dialogue, or its great cast. Comedies about gangsters are often fun. There’s also the fact that it’s a movie about the movies, which is nice. So, there’s much to praise here.
Chili Palmer (Travolta), a New York loan shark, needs to collect money from debtors for his boss. This leads him to Miami, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. But from the first scene, we know his heart is not in his work. He is lost in thought as he glances wistfully outside the diner window. He is saddened that the old theater across the street will be torn down and wishes his boss would buy it to play Cagney films there.
To call Chili a movie buff is an understatement. In Los Angeles, he tries to collect on a debt from Harry Zimm (Hackman), a low-budget horror film producer. Chili takes the opportunity to pitch an idea for a motion picture to him—which is really his attempt to collect from a gambler (David Paymer) in Vegas. Harry is intrigued. But Harry is not the sharpest tool in the shed; he borrowed $200,000 to make a film from Bo Catlett and Ronnie Wingate (Delroy Lindo and Jon Gries) whose limo service is actually a drug front. He also gambled the money away and they want it back. He wants Chili to get rid of these guys and, amazingly enough, Chili is on his way to becoming a movie producer. Who does that?
In Los Angeles, everyone wants to be in the movie business. Harry has a great film in mind, Mr. Lovejoy, but its rights would cost him $500,000. Bo wants in on this project but Chili rejects him. Karen Flores (Russo), who has starred in several of Harry’s B- movies, is tired of “climbing out of graves” and would also like to become a producer. She suggests casting film star Martin Weir (DeVito), her ex-husband, as the protagonist, and she and Chili meet at his mansion.
Chili humorously outsmarts everyone. As Roger Ebert points out, “the movie's single best scene is one where [he gives Martin] acting lessons in how to look filled with menace.”1 He is calm and resourceful, which allows him to outmaneuver his enemies—even with a knife at his throat. And although Chili is a mobster, it’s difficult to see him as such. When asked how he collects from debtors he says, “they always pay”; a vague statement that makes his enforcement methods a mystery. We all would like to exude such self-confidence in our daily lives and have such grace under fire. . . and his nickname, Chili, is perhaps because he is so “chill.” Of course, Chili’s character originates in the macho protagonists of the films of yesteryear, such as Clint Eastwood and John Wayne. But unlike them, Chili resorts to comic audacity rather than gunfire. When he first meets Harry, he uses a power tactic: “look at me”; Harry tries this approach with another mobster (Farina) with near disastrous results. It seems that Chili’s greatest assets are his understated charm and sense of humor.
Copyright © 2024 by Rosi Prieto, Ph.D.
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https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/get-shorty-1995