BE COOL
Directed by F. Gary Gray
GRADE: B MINUS
Reviewed by Sean Burns
PHILADELPHIA WEEKLY

Probably the crummiest movie I’ve enjoyed in quite some time, director F. Gary Gray’s BE COOL is a chaotic shambles. It’s all awkward angles, garish colors, broad caricatures and over-the-top buffoonery. How embarrassing that it only took forty-five minutes to wear me down to a point where I could no longer choke back my giggles.

Artlessly adapted by screenwriter Peter Steinfeld from crack crime novelist Elmore Leonard’s uncharacteristically lame 1999 GET SHORTY sequel, BE COOL follows John Travolta’s loan-shark-turned-movie-mogul Chili Palmer through a career move into the music business. We catch up with Chili as he’s rescuing an allegedly soulful R&B singer (blank-slate Christina Milan) from a draconian management contract with the oddly boring Harvey Keitel’s sinister wiseguy/Phil Spector wannabe.

Leonard’s novel was already a faded Xerox of the original -–it’s the only stinker in the dozen or so books of his I’ve gobbled up like candy over the years. Gray perhaps wisely treats Elmore’s labyrinthine array of double-crosses as something of a nuisance, jettisoning most of the mayhem and using the plot as a clothesline for increasingly silly comic set-pieces.

Travolta doesn’t really *star* in the movie, he sort of just hosts it. Chili smokes more than he talks, dragging you along from one shady character to another and occasionally burping a bit of tough-guy jargon when not making goo-goo eyes at Uma Thurman’s recently widowed record exec. (John and Uma’s sparkling chemistry still inspires PULP-y nostalgia – even if Gray is clueless enough to shoot their inevitable dance scene exclusively in medium shots.)

Vince Vaughn is the most annoying man in movies, and I mean that as a very high compliment indeed. As a timid young Jewish boy who thinks the only way to succeed in the music industry is to pretend you’re a black pimp, Vaughn’s hysterical nattering is only enhanced by his incessant ebonics. BE COOL’s underlying theme is that everybody in this biz is playing dress-up, including Cedric The Entertainer’s suburban soccer-dad Wharton grad – who packs heat and carries on like Suge Knight just so he can keep his precious street cred.

The only character comfortable in his own skin (besides Chili, of course) is The Rock’s glorious Eliot Wilhelm, a flamboyantly gay street thug with secret dreams of superstardom. There’s a contagious glee in The Rock’s mile-wide smile, and the former wrestler goes for broke – never once condescending to the character or standing outside the material, giving a fully rounded, unbelievably adorable performance.

Whether he’s belting out Loretta Lynn’s “You Aint Woman Enough” or auditioning for Chili with a “monologue” from BRING IT ON, The Rock runs away with the movie.

He’s almost good enough to make you forget you’ve just seen Steven Tyler playing himself, badly. Heck, he’s such a joy this sloppy sequel almost feels worthwhile.