Be Cool Movie review
Written March 21, 2005

Be Cool isn’t nearly as cool as it wants to be.

Set in the glitz-glam world of Hollywood music and movie production, this sequel to Get Shorty wraps a bevy of big name stars into a mediocre plot and prays that they can carry the film through two hours of ho-hum self-referential humour. They can’t. Nobody could.

Be Cool comes off like director F. Gary Gray desperately wants to be Quentin Tarentino and Guy Richie – fine influences, to be sure, but a hackneyed PG-13 rip-off of their respective styles is hardly acceptable. Uma Thurman and John Travolta dance, as they are wont to do, but the style and passion isn’t there. A parade of ridiculous cameos (Steven Tyler from Aerosmith) is a painfully obvious distraction from the plot that hobbles alongside them.

The film has its moments, I can’t deny. The Rock is bizarre, if nothing else, in his role as a gay bodyguard who wants to be a starlet, and I was moderately amused by Vince Vaughn as a “thinks-he’s-black” pimp/manager/thing. Andre 3000 of Outkast fame adds a bit of spice as a clueless gangster who just wants to shoot somebody, anybody.

Be Cool operates as a parody of the music and movie industries and, at times, delivers on its promise. In one conversation, Travolta cleverly notes that the word “fuck” can only be used once in a film for it to retain a PG-13 rating… and true enough, nobody else says fuck for the rest of the movie. Cedric the Entertainer, a suburbanite rap mogul who rolls with a posse of gang-bangers in SUVs with spinning rims, showcases the conflict between “the streets” and affluent success. There are moments worth a second glance.

But these sparkling instances are no excuse for the blah plot and overly predictable ‘twists’ that dominate Be Cool. You’ll feel raped by the blatant product placement that paid for this ineptitude and bewildered by the snide back-references to Get Shorty – a movie that came out, what, like ten years ago? Quite frankly, you’ll probably want your money back.

Be Cool is actually pretty lame and, if I were equally lame, I might suggest that this movie take its own title as a valuable piece of advice. But that would be way too obvious.

That WOULD be way too obvious!