Rent Get Shorty (1995)

Hollywood Hustle, Light on Muscle - Get Shorty review by griggs

A loan shark with a love for old movies comes to Hollywood to collect a debt and ends up trying to produce a film—it’s the sort of premise that promises both satire and swagger. Get Shorty delivers some of that, but mostly coasts on its cast’s charm. John Travolta, fresh from his Pulp Fiction renaissance, plays Chili Palmer as a smooth-talking operator who glides through LA’s criminal and cinematic underworld with the same deadpan confidence.

It’s a fun but insubstantial slice of post-Tarantino pulp—slick, jokey, and self-aware without ever being particularly sharp. Gene Hackman’s turn as a hapless B-movie producer is a highlight, and there’s amusement in the revolving door of hustlers, actors, and gangsters all trying to out-con one another. But it’s a pleasant diversion and nothing more: light on tension, heavier on knowing smirks.

The film ends up like its protagonist—cool, well-dressed, and utterly untroubled. Enjoyable while it lasts, but it drifts away as easily as a pitch meeting gone nowhere.

Funny knock-about mob Hollywood comedy - Get Shorty review by PV

This is a good fun watch - lots of tricksy postmodernism here too. Lots of jokes about the Hollywood film industry and art imitating life.

Great performances by Gene Hackman and John Travolta who plays a 'Shylock' - a mobster calling in loans. Of course, in real life he'd have been shot dead within a week. But this is essentially fantasy - a romantic vision of the mob and Hollywood.

Some lovely in-jokes here.

4 stars