F. Gary Gray's follow up to Barry Sonnenfeld's excellent Get Shorty comes in the form of another Elmore Leonard adaptation, Be Cool. Continuing the story of Chili Palmer, Gray's film lacks much of the black humor and slick charm of the first film but still manages to be good for a few laughs.

Picking up shortly after the events in Get Shorty we find Chili Palmer (John Travolta once again) getting tired of the Hollywood machine. After working at film production for a while now, he's grown tired of it all and is looking for something new to try his hand at. Where do all successful Hollywood types go when they want a change? Just ask Don Johnson and Eddie Murphy, they'll tell you what I'm telling you know – they head for the recording studio. Knowing his skills lay in the behind the scenes type of roles, Chili decides to head on into the music business as a producer. It seems his good friend Tommy Athens (James Woods) was mowed down and his widow, the sultry Edie Athens (Uma Thurman) needs some help with the family business. Chili steps in, hilarity ensues. Sort of.

Before Tommy died, he'd told Chili about a hot up and coming act named Linda Moon (Christina Milian) and Chili figures that getting her signed would be a nice way to start things off in his new profession. Unfortunately for Chili, an equally sleazy music executive named Raji (Vince Vaughn) has got his eyes on Ms. Moon too. Raji, along with his homosexual bodyguard Elliot (The Rock) and his business partner Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel) aren't too keen on Chili getting to Ms. Moon before they do and a bit of a race ensues. Sort of.

To complicate things a little more for everyone's favorite former goombah, it seems that before Tommy was killed he was a little mixed up in some dealings with the Russian mafia, who are now looking to Chili to get things handled. If that weren't enough to deal with on its own, a prominent rap music producer named Sin LaSelle (Cedric The Entertainer) is out to cause Chili a few problems of his own, and his hip hop happening posse called the Dub MD's, lead by Dabu (Andre 3000 a.k.a. Andre Benjamin from Outkast) are on hand to make sure he gets his way. Just when it looks like all is lost, Edie pulls a rabbit out of a hat when it turns out that she has some ties to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith (playing himself) who, after a chance run in at a Lakers game, decides to lend his considerable lip service to Chili and Edie's cause and help out an old friend. Sort of.

The reason that the 'sort of' keeps popping up is because the film gets so mired in its own cast of characters that ultimately it gets a little confusing and a little convoluted. There are still some very funny moments in the film, most of which, oddly enough, come courtesy of The Rock, but they're spread in between a lot of strange characters who seem to be just thrown into the film for the fun of it. While it's all well and good to assemble an all star cast like MGM did for this one, it makes far more sense to have characters who are actually necessary to the storyline take up most of the screen time rather than divvy it up amongst celebrity guest stars and cell phone product placement bits.

Be Cool isn't all bad though. Travolta is still good in the lead and his fans will enjoy seeing him reprise his dance moves from Pulp Fiction where he once again cuts a rug with Uma Thurman. Speaking of Uma, she looks great in this movie and is seductive enough and smart enough to be pretty sexy in spots yet she's still able to remain believable in her role. She and Travolta do have a certain on screen chemistry that, while not as strong as it was in Tarantino's Oscar winner, does rise Be Cool up a notch or two where it would be otherwise. Vince Vaughn is also quite good a white pimp who wants to be black, and as such is responsible for more than a few of the film's better comedic moments.

In the end though, Be Cool feels, like so many of its bit part players, quite unnecessary. Sure, the source material was there and so it made a great deal of commercial sense to film a sequel but really, there's should be a better reason for it than that. The film takes a few jabs at the Hollywood machine while it plays out all the while succumbing to the same traits and tactics that it purports to be jabbing at in the first place.

If you're a big enough fan of any of the actors cast in the film, you'll probably still find something to like about Be Cool. I did. It isn't a terrible film by any means, but the potential was there for it to be a whole lot more, like its predecessor was. Sadly, despite a valiant effort, the film bites of more than it can chew and it ends up as a mediocre attempt at recreating one of Travolta's better post Pulp Fiction moments.

Video:

MGM presents Be Cool in a very nice 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer that looks as good as a brand new film should look on home video. There is some mild edge enhancement but I didn't notice any compression artifacts. Skin tones look very life like and natural and there's a nice, high level of detail present throughout the movie. Color reproduction is strong and there are no problems with tones bleeding into one another, everything looks nice and distinct. If the transfer has one flaw it's that it shimmers noticeably in a few spots but other than that, MGM has done a very good job on ensuring that the film looks it's best on DVD.