Got Shorty

I just watched Get Shorty for the first time since it played theatres in 1995.  It's slight, but good, and was a hit in its day. It's about East Coast loan shark Chili Palmer who travels to Hollywood and decides his talents are better suited to producing movies.  While the film is packed with menacing gangsters the tone is comedy-satire.  It's got a good script by Scott Frank, adapted from an Elmore Leonard novel I haven't read (though I've heard "Shorty" is based on Leonard's dealings with Dustin Hoffman).

John Travolta is the lead.  This was just after his comeback breakthrough in Pulp Fiction, and it's a real star role in that the character is the ultimate in cool and wins every scene.  Everyone else (except love interest Rene Russo) is basically his stooge--Gene Hackman as the feckless producer, Danny DeVito as the self-involved star and Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, James Gandolfini and Jon Gries as various goons.  Part of the joke, of course, is that the thugs are starstruck themselves and want to get into show biz--and that show biz is the perfect place for them, since it requires more bluster than talent (you can hire talent).

The film has a perfect director in former cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld, who knows how to make things look good while keeping the story afloat.  Something this whimsical, almost farcical, looks easy when it's done right, but if you've seen the sequel made a decade later, Be Cool, where Chili gets into the music business, you can see how hard it is to maintain the proper tone.

PS One of the scenes has a billboard featuring Danny DeVito as Martin Weir starring in a film about Napoleon.   I remember seeing it on the Sunset Strip.  It caused some confusion at the time.