`Get Shorty' is another gangster star vehicle for Travolta

RATING: * * *

by Caroline Keller

Lately there has been a rash of movies that seek to push the envelope of "ultra hip," starting with the kingpin of hip: Pulp Fiction . John Travolta seems to be licking these envelopes faster than they can be made. With the laid-back gangster he played in Pulp Fiction , he has created an image for himself that might ride him through the next ice age. The latest in this movie trend, Get Shorty , stars John Travolta as Chili, a laid-back gangster loan shark (once again) who moves from the seedy backroom of the Miami loan shark business to the even seedier studios of the Hollywood movie- making business.

The basic plot of Get Shorty quickly wears thin, but luckily for the movie, the plot is not its most interesting part. Because of all the different plot lines that revolve around Chili, Get Shorty at times feels more like a compilation of vignettes than a complete movie. At the same time, it is the intricate interplay of these smaller plots that gives the movie its great "bad-ass" attitude. This attitude seems to be how the movie aims to entertain: Rather than being drawn to the plot, the viewer gets pulled in by the characters.

The plot of Get Shorty is so complicated that trying to reconstruct everything that went on in the movie gives me a headache. The story opens on Chili's home turf of Miami where we see him perfecting his "I'm-an-unemotional-but-humane-bad-ass" persona. Through some convoluted twists, Chili ends up in Hollywood collecting money from various people. Once there he decides that he belongs in the movie business and sets about using his unique skills to get to the top. Amazingly, the fact that the movie's events are a little too convenient doesn't detract from Get Shorty' s entertainment value. The way the movie is made emphasizes an attitude rather than a plot line.

Excellent supporting characters are essential in a movie that plans to entertain through the hipness of its characters, and in this aspect, Get Shorty comes through like a pro. Renee Russo leads the supporting cast as a B horror movie actress who hooks up with Chili. The rest of the cast is rounded out with Danny DeVito as Martin Weir (the pictures of Danny DeVito as Napoleon Bonaparte are some of the funniest parts of the movie) and Gene Hackman as the B-movie director who inadvertently brings Chili into the Hollywood loop.

Get Shorty is one of the new wave of movies that are based on capturing the bad-ass attitude that was made popular with Pulp Fiction . It does it very successfully with the help of an all-star cast and a witty script. Anyone who has liked the recent trend in movies will find Get Shorty a worthy addition.

This item appeared in the Arts & Entertainment section of the October 13, 1995 issue.

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