Chili Palmer (John Travolta) a debt collector travels to L.A. to collect a debt, only to get involved in the film industry.I had missed this film when it came out and it has gone on to be an iconic "B" film crime comedy. The humor was crisp and well time. Travolta was great in the role and had a his pre-botox face on the screen most of time. A feel-good dark comedy and Golden Globe winner for Travolta.Guide: F-words. No sex or nudity.

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.

John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini, David Paymer and Dennis Farina star in this 1995 comedy based on the novel. This focuses on Miami Loan-shark, Chili Palmer (Travolta) who decides to go into the movie business after he's sent to L.A. to collect a debt from producer, Harry Zimm (Hackman). Chili works with Harry on a script based on actual events of goofy dry-cleaner, Leo (Paymer) who scammed $300.000 off an airline he miraculously survived from. There's also a bag full of drug money hidden in an airport locker that becomes eyed by Chili and others. Russo (Major League) plays actress, Karen Flores who falls for Chili, DeVito (Throw Momma from the Train) plays her ex-husband & actor, Martin Weir, Lindo (Ransom) plays Harry's crooked investor, Bo Catlin who wants to work on Harry's new script, the late, Farina (Manhunter) plays Miami collector, Ray "Bones" Barboni who doesn't get along with Chili and the late, Gandolfini (The Sopranos) plays Bo's associate, Bear who is an actor/stuntman. This is a good, entertaining film with a great cast I recommend.

Now what does one make of this rather strange movie. What is the plot and if there is a plot, what is it? Get Shorty is not a mindless action flick, that is not what I am referring to when I am asking about a plot. Most action flicks generally have a plot, even though they are probably extremely shallow. Get Shorty, on the other hand, has a rather strange plot with some even stranger events.Chilli (John Travolta) is a loan shark who has been upset by another mafia boss in Miami named Ray Babone (Hal Linden). Chilli breaks Babone's nose and then shoots him just to let him know that he is not in the mood to be pushed around. Unfortunately Chilli's boss, Momo, dies in Brooklyn when he walks into a surprise party and has a heart attack. Babone then convinces him to go to Los Angeles to chase a laundry operator who owes him $300,000 after he allegedly died in a airplane crash. When Chilli gets to Los Angeles he is also asked by somebody in Las Vegas to get some money from a movie producer (Gene Hackman). When he breaks into the producer's house, he is struck with the movie making bug and decides that the current events would make a good movie. Thus he begins to try to drum up interest, mostly from a famous actor named Martin Wier (Danny DeVito) and gets involved with Wier's ex-wife who is an actress (Rene Ruso). Meanwhile another loan shark is after the producer for money that was lost at a casino.Pretty twisting little plot I thought and there were some quite funny scenes in the movie. It is the twisting plot that makes this movie shine. The major thing with the movie is a satirical look at Hollywood and the loansharking business. All of the films mentioned have really corny names suggesting the meaninglessness of the movies that are made. It is also shown as a bug that influences everybody that comes into the scene. Chilli and the LA loanshark are both caught by the producing bug and want to get into the film industry. Martin Wier is a typical actor and his personality is also satirised. He is shown Chilli's rent-a-car and decides that he likes it so much that he buys one himself. When they are having lunch, he orders everything for everybody and eats none of it suggesting that the actor always wants to be in control of the movie, even though it is the producer and the director that run the show. Then there is the ending where Ray Babone goes to the locker at LA airport and is caught by the DEA agents. This is twisted around in the film being made replacing the agents with Chilli, somebody much shorter, and a bad imitation of Babone. This goes to show the delusion that Hollywood creates. In a true story, the people become vague caricatures of the people that they are based upon, and are twisted to allow the famous actors to take the spot. Martin Wier is nothing like Chilli yet Chilli knows that to capture an audience, one must turn to a famous face.Then there is the film studio ending, the removal of the veil that shrouds Hollywood. It is revealed that all it is is a movie and any bad ending is meaningless because the antagonist is only an actor who walks away afterwards. No matter how evil this bad guy is and no matter how much he is hated, what happens in the movie is only an illusion. The bad guy is only an actor and his apparent death is just some ploy shot in front of the camera. In the end, they will all pack up and go home.Thus Get Shorty is a very intelligent and satirical movie. The bad guys are not threatening, but rather a caricature of the typical Hollywood villain. The movie is focused entirely on Chilli who is fearless and able to bend even the most intimidating person to his will. The most outstanding part of this movie is Gene Hackman's role. When I do not recognise the actor then that actor is doing a very good job. This was the case with Ed Harris in The Truman Show, and it is the case in this movie. Hackman has a famous face, yet it was a face that I did not recognise in this film.