GET SHORTY (1995) ** Well, it has a lot elements suggesting that it could be a good movie. Gene Hackman's semi-sleazy L.A. director doesn't begin to challenge him, but it's pretty much on the money in that superficial way that defies reality, in reality. Danny DeVito looks like he knows how to do lunch the Hollywood way. And Travolta. Travolta's strength has never been so much a natural charismatic cool as the ability to brilliantly portray someone desperately trying to act that way. Even in Saturday Night Fever and Grease (not even getting to Pulp Fiction), the appeal was invariably affectation. Doesn't make it nonexistent, just makes it artificial, in a very real way. Which is not to say that he has no credibility as a tough guy, he looks like he knows how to throw a punch. My point is that the strengths of the film are every bit as superficial and contrived as the "surprise" ending. Lots of people are. There's no character worth paying more than passing attention to, the level of gangster cool never approaches the Ocean's Eleven remake, it's a skeleton key of a plot with modest ornamentation and there's not even any clever and manipulative directorial gimmickry to get caught up in. The way that Delroy Lindo talks is cool though.
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