Some Billy Bad Ass.
The Italian Job (2003) -- Just another heist movie, but not a bad one. C
Be Cool (2005) -- Get Shorty wasn't that great, and this is even worse. The first five minutes makes the movie seem like it's going to be some kind of meta-movie (the joke about "fuck" only being used once in a PG-13 movie, etc.), which would have been fine and mildly entertaining in a makes-you-snicker kind of way, but even that small amount of drive is lost very quickly, and instead this becomes a series of little episodes that are meant to be funny and entertaining to themselves, but none of them are. There is no tension in any scene Chili Palmer is in, because -- instead of asking "How is he going to get out of this one?" -- you simply know he will because of his annoying smugness. Besides, you don't care if he gets out of it or not because he's not likeable. If this is somewhat a movie about showing the vacancy of people in show-biz, the movie itself is even more vacant when it shows us what passes as "real," which is too-long typical performances by Ciara. Only Vince Vaughn and The Rock offer the tiniest amount of humor, and even Andre 3000 is really bad here. (See Barry Sonnenfeld for the predecessor, Get Shorty.) D
Copyright (c) Oct 2003 - Jul 2005 by Rusty Likes Movies