TonyMontana96 (Originally reviewed: 07/03/2017) Deemed a comedy but felt like more of a crime drama with a sense of humour to me, but let's not take anything away from this picture; it's fairly well made. John Travolta play's Chili Palmer, a loan shark with aspirations to become a film producer and he is very compelling here, Hackman play's filmmaker Harry Zimm, Russo play's his female companion Karen Flores, DeVito play's big movie star Martin Weir, Dennis Farina plays Ray Barboni a gangster nicknamed Bones and Delroy Lindo plays Bo Catlett a drug dealer with James Gandolfini as his right hand man who plays a former stuntman named Bear. The performances are great, each character has an interesting complexity to them and the acting is completely impressive all round; as well as a good pace and a couple of amusing one liners.However I did not like it's opening sequence which was a reference to 'Chili Palmer's name, it just wasn't funny, it went something like Chilli, it must be hot in here like it is out there; and fortunately it gets better after that but the picture is disguised as a comedy, now plenty of film's have a sense of humour but does that make them a full on comedy? No it does not, and if it were a comedy, they needed a bit more of a sharper wit to prove so, because I was sure it was a crime thriller and as a crime thriller it is well made, well, the ending is sort of unmemorable and random but up till then I still enjoyed myself, and though the film is not as funny as I had hoped, it's original, superbly acted and has scenes that are simply spellbinding. Barry Sonnenfield's direction is spot on, Scott Franks screenplay has a fair amount of depth and Elmore Leonard's story is always compelling, whether your laughing or not. Get Shorty is stylish, well-paced and at times fairly amusing, it may not be a great film; but it's sure worth seeing; especially for the performances.

John Brooks Why people love it ? Because they feel acting alone is an argument as to a film's quality. Add snappy pseudo-witty dialog, the criminal mob type environment, and as mentioned a good cast of actors and voila. Easy.But really, here's the thing. Relying entirely on the complicated network that is the plot alone, does not make for an effectively good story, or film. Picking up a piece of paper and writing a bunch of different vapid characters with different arbitrary incentives and mixing them all up together without any ultimate moral or any genuine meaning, does not make you a story-writing genius. At all.Structurally, this film is random, the scenes interchangeable. The events just pile on, and yet it feels so immensely linear and uneventful. It's like the film is so dead, and drags on, no action could possibly finally get it going ! It's boring to death, and it never finally picks up.The details are often stupid, and the film relies A LOT on totally convenient details to move on at all. The naivety of a character, the stupidity of another...this is just gratuitous mob-comedy like it was written by amateurs or something.This is more of the same: random tough guy talk, redundant scenes like the guy secretly waiting in the dark at someone's place, the remote killing that makes little to no sense, relying on a character's very particular reaction...And in such films, as the viewer you at least have something big to look forward to at the end, like a twist or a big prize or something special that catches you off-guard and puts the whole picture into perspective... here, nothing. Nothing at all. Boring, boring, boring ! 3/10.

Anssi Vartiainen Get Shorty has a pretty sweet set-up. A loanshark mobster named Chili Palmer (John Travolta) has to travel from Miami to Los Angeles in order to collect a debt for his new boss. There he finds out that the movie business doesn't really differ all that much from what he has done successfully all his life, and thus he decides to produce a movie while he's at it. Very nice idea. Just exaggerated enough that no one will take it too seriously and the jokes practically write themselves.Which makes it all the more baffling that I didn't really laugh while watching the film. I enjoyed its plot a lot, but its humour didn't connect with me at all. I enjoyed the suaveness of John Travolta and all his serious scenes a lot more than I enjoyed any of the jokes the script had him say every once in a while. And that's basically the movie in a nutshell. It has a really good cast of actors, all of them charismatic and able to play their characters to perfection, but the script doesn't give them all that much to work with, meaning that they're not all that funny. Perhaps this would have worked better as a drama film with a humorous undertone. More drama than comedy, whereas in this case it's the other way around.Then again, perhaps it's just me. I've heard a lot of people say that this is a really funny film, so it might just be that it's not my cup of tea. Wouldn't be the first time when it comes to comedies. And, as stated, the film works very well as a story about a mobster that decides to do Hollywood. The characters are interesting, the various plot twists are just convoluted enough and the plot has a good structure.All in all I have to rate the film as just slightly below average because for me it doesn't work as a comedy. Still, definitely worth a watch if you're more omnivorous when it comes to comedies, because even if the humour doesn't hit you, at least you'll get a pretty decent mobster film out of it.

zenbuckaroo In film writing seminars, they tell you to include nothing that does not advance the story. The same should hold true for a well paced novel (alhough seldom does). For Elmore Leonard the rule was gospel. You may or may not like his stories but you will never fall asleep because they are too slow. With a good solid script; great actors; competent direct and tight editing; Get Shorty moves with a speed that will not leave you any breaks to make a head call or a popcorn run. It is full of humorous anecdotes and just enough action to keep the action fans awake. Story synopsis is included in the main reviews of this movie, so I will skip that. You can get a copy to see at most of your local video stores or by ordering through netflix (not available through streaming at this time )