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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 15853
Released: June 7, 2005 |
| Our Price: $1.28 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Starring an unbelievably hip all-star cast, including John Travolta, Uma Thurman, André 3000, Steven Tyler and The Rock, and bursting with the hottest music in the biz, Be Cool is the wildly hilarious tale about a gangster turned music mogul and what it takes to be number one with a bullet. When Chili Palmer (Travolta) decides to try his hand in the music industry, he romances thesultry widow (Thurman) of a recently whacked music exec, poaches a hot young singer (Christina Milian) from a rival label and discovers that the record industry is packin' a whole lot more than a tune!
Description of Be Cool (Widescreen Edition):
Be Cool takes its own advice: It's slick, Hollywood entertainment that kills two amusing hours with relative ease and comfort. Better than leftovers but not as tasty as a full-course meal, this sequel to 1995's hit comedy Get Shorty (and based on Elmore Leonard's 1999 sequel novel) finds former loan shark Chili Palmer (John Travolta) itching to get out of the movie business, so he hooks up with a newly widowed music executive (Uma Thurman) to launch the career of an up-'n-coming Beyoncé-like singer (newcomer Christina Milian). A mock-black manager (Vince Vaughn), his sleazy boss (Harvey Keitel), and an upscale gangsta-rap executive (Cedric the Entertainer) all have a competing stake in the fast-rising pop diva's future, and this sets the plot rolling in a fun but rather hand-me-down fashion that lacks the savvy panache of Get Shorty but still provides plenty of lightweight humor. The Rock and Outkast's André Benjamin provide the best laughs in supporting roles that effortlessly relieve the movie from the symptoms of sequelitis. --Jeff Shannon
Be Cool (Widescreen Edition) Reviews:
more dud than cool 
2009-11-15 - I usu. write about music or movies that I really like...but I didn't like Be Cool. I like comedy, action, fun, even stereotypes, but Be Cool is just too much weak stuff, seen it before, not original, not gut-bustin comedy. Even the stereotype-characters are a dud; if it's been done before then change something!..to make it fun or interesting. Steve Tyler?...nah...his daughter maybe.
They could have salvaged the flick by having more of sexy Christine Millian as a super hoochie or bitchy vixen in patent leather, at least get a thrill with her.
Compared with say, Players Club, & Undercover Brother: both of those are also full of stereotypes & stuff we've seen before, but those two do it right, excellent movies full of action, comedy, soft & hard stuff, vixens.
F. Gary Gray is a one of the more mediocre directors around
2009-10-31 - This is the first negative review I have ever put up on amazon but when you consider the tremendous acting talent, source material and the excellent first installment of this series it is truly an achievement to come up with such a boring, unfunny movie as Be Cool.
When watching this film I get the feeling that any other director would have done so much better.
Gray seems to have no concept at all of pacing or flow. Scenes drag on way too long (i.e. the Linda Moon/Aerosmith song..did we REALLY have to see the entire song..how about just a snippet), unfunny recurring jokes (russian guy getting punched in the eye) are employed and great actors like Harvey Keitel are completely underutilized.]
The Vince Vaughn and Rock characters are unfunny and cringe inducing and Linda Moon's singing is so generic sounding that it is hard to believe that she would ever get a second look much less play on stage with Aerosmith.
If this film reflects Gray's vision then he is truly a shallow and uninteresting person.
Lousy movie
Not that cool 
2009-10-22 - You know there's something not quite right with a movie when it boasts actors the calibre of John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, James Woods, and Vince Vaughan....yet the most memorable roles are those by ex-wrestler The Rock and singer Andre-3000. Unfortunately, despite its cast, 'Be Cool' ends up being much less than the some of its parts.
In this sort-of-sequel to 'Get Shorty', we follow Chili Palmer moving out of the movie business and into the music industry. What follows is a convoluted plot involving Russian mobsters, a widowed record company owner, try-hard gangstas, a promising young singer, gay bodyguards, and a Vanilla Ice-like white boy who acts black.
Many people bag the performances of the main cast, especailly Travolta and Thurman. It's true they do phone in their efforts for this movie, but the script doesn't really give them alot of material to work with. In fact, despite all the characters and confusion, the central story is quite simple and not really that interesting. It is mostly the side plots and minor characters, not the central players, that are more entertaining.
The bigger problem with this movie is that, for a comedy, it's not really that funny. It relies very heavily on "irony" and in-jokes that too often fall flat. For example, Aerosmith singer Steve Tyler (in one of the most cringeworthy cameos ever seen) proclaims "I'm not one of those singers who appear in movies!". Geddit??? He's a singer, and he's appearing in a movie, claiming he doesn't appear in movies. Yep, this is the sort of thing you're forced to suffer through in the name of "humour".
However, the interactions between Raji (Vaughan) and his gay Samoan bodyguard and wannabe singer (The Rock) are hilarious. The humour here is much more slapstick and off-the-cuff, particularly The Rock's "monologue" and his music video. Andre-3000 as a tea-drinking gangsta and Robert Pastoerlli as a bumbling hit-man are other highlights. If only they'd put in a bit more of this sort of stuff rather than the heavy-handed pop culture references, this would have been a better film.
Be cool is a 3.5/5 star DVD 
2009-05-30 - This was the remake to the original movie called Get Shorty. While this was a solid movie it did not live up to the expectations of the first one in my opinion. They had a great cast of actors even some of the old ones back like Danny Divito but I felt the storyline was remade but not in a better way. It still brought the funny aspect to the film. And watching the rock play a gay character in the movie was absolutely hilarious. Also watching Vince Vaughn playing a wanna be gangster is funny as heck as well. Just something missing and unlike the first movie you could tell the content was less severe not only because it was PG-13 but not the full out feel we don't care what we say we are going to make a great movie. I would still recommend picking this up if you can for $10 or below because it is funny. I will give it a 3.5/5 stars and leave it at that.
Just...you know...be cool
2009-05-18 - I usually review movies in a certain way, but for this one, I'm just gonna get right down to why I think this movie is pretty darn good. I was actually shocked to see it rated as low as it is. I know it's a sequel to Get Shorty (which I remember being good...but I just can't remember it), but it honestly feels like its own movie. It feels like it has almost nothing to do with its predecessor. I'm going to actually tell you 10 reasons why I like it.
1. John Travolta plays Chili Palmer perfectly. I love how he's a smooth tough guy with a brain. He gets just about anything he wants, and can totally out play anyone by reading who they are perfectly.
2. Dwayne `The Rock' Johnson is hilarious. I've liked Dwayne since he was The Rock on WWF. He was always funny, even when he was supposed to be on the bad guy side. You couldn't help like his cocky demeanor. Here though, he plays a tough guy (supposedly) body guard for Raji. Oh and he's gay. He loves looking good and loves acting and singing.
3. Vince Vaughn is amazing as the music manager Raji, a white guy who acts and dresses in a black guy pimpish kind of way. Hearing him talk is priceless. I love when he starts talking like he's a bad mutha, but then quickly backs down when confronted.
4. Cedric the Entertainer plays Sin LaSalle, a music recorder/mixer. A very educated black man, that is great at what he does. I love the fact that the first time you see him, he's acting more like some goofy rich white dude. Then you see his crew role up in hummers with spinners and loud music, and guns stuck in their very low riding jeans, and you know how he truly is. He's a gangsta in sheep's clothing.
5. Andre (from the rap group Outkast) is Sin's cousin, Dabu. He's a straight up thug, who always loud and just wants to kill someone and doesn't care who. At first he was kind of annoying, but I was wrong, he's funny.
6. Stereotyping is rampant in this movie. I don't like racism, but I do think jokes about stereotypes are funny. Which is why I think Carlos Mencia can be funny, as well as Dave Chappell who I think is a comedic genius. Even Chris Rock. Those guys know how to spread it around, to make you feel like you are not being singled out. That's kind of how this movie makes me feel.
7. The story itself, even with some definite holes, is a lot of fun. Watching how the back stabbings unfold is great. Especially when Raji gets called out by Sin. Hilarious.
8. Christina Milian is not a great actress, but she sure doesn't hurt my eyes.
9. This list isn't going to make it to 10 things.
10. Did I mention Vince Vaughn and the Rock? Seriously, they were amazing in every scene they were in. I laughed hard a lot when they were on.
Though I really liked Be Cool, it sure wasn't perfect. Probably my biggest gripe was the god awful blatancy of the product placements. I don't know how many times we had to see the Honda Insight car or the T-Mobile Sidekick or all the other name drops in the movie to get it in our heads that they were in there. I laughed one time when the camera was slightly zoomed in on the back of the sidekick while somebody was texting someone. T-MOBILE SIDEKICK. Ugh... it was horrible.
So in the end, I really liked the movie. I don't even think of it as being a sequel to Get Shorty. I laughed a lot and am definitely glad I own this movie. Give it a try.
P.S. - I love when Raji and Elliot (The Rock) are talking about getting some chicken. I don't think they said the whole name, but you can tell they were talking about Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles...hehe. I've always wanted to eat there.
