Get Shorty (Jersey Films, MGM, 1995)

by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2022 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved

Get Shorty is a 1995 film based on a novel by crime writer Elmore Leonard published in 1990, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld based on a script adapted from Leonard’s novel by Scott Frank. It’s basically a one-joke movie, but the one joke is quite amusing. The one joke is that the movie business is much like the Mafia: both are run by totally unscrupulous men who hand women to each other like party favors and aren’t above committing any sort of crime, up to and including murder, to get what they wanted. Small-time loan shark and bookie Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is sent to Los Angeles by his higher-ups in the Mob to collect an overdue debt from Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman), a small-time movie producer who mostly makes cheap, terrible horror films. Of course, Zimm wants to upgrade the artistic quality of his productions,and in order to do that he’s optioned a script called Mr. Lovejoy and is trying to raise money to film it. Chili and Zimm meet one night when Chili breaks into Zimm’s house while Zimm is upstairs in bed with Karen Flores (René Russo). Karen is a regular star in Zimm’s horror movies – we even get to hear her scream. She’s also the wife of mega-star Martin Weir (Danny DeVito – and yes, the idea that Danny DeVito is playing a superstar actor and leading man whose presence in a film can assure huge success at the box office is part of what gives this film its bizarre charm!). As an intimidation tactic, Chili turns on Zimm’s TV and forces him to go downstairs to see why the set is on and who’s broken into his home and why. This being the sort of movie it is, the encounter between chili and Zimm (who’s still in his underwear) turns into a pitch meeting with Chili outlining his idea for a movie based on his criminal life.

Chili also collects $300,000 from another Mob debtor, Leo Devoe (David Paymer), who lucked out by getting off a plane just before it took off and crashed with everyone on board killed. So he’s been able to lay low and not let anybody know he isn’t dead until Chili tracks him down and takes the money in exchange for not telling anyone in the Mob that Leo is alive. Chili has been basking in the protection of Mob boss Momo (Ron Karabatsos) until Momo dies unexpectedly just as he arrives at a surprise party; the official synopsis on Wikipedia says he died of a heart attack but it looked to me like he was poisoned (even though poison isn’t the usual way the Mafia gets rid of people). Momo’s place as Chili’s Mob boss is taken over by Ray “Bones” Barboni (Dennis Farina, later a lead detective on a couple of later seasons of the original Law and Order, and he’s at least as good here as a crook as he was as a cop), who can’t stand Chili because Chili wounded him in a fight. Meanwhile Zimm is being threatened by two thug-like investors in his movies, Bo Catlett (Delroy Lindo, a tall, intimidating-looking Black actor who looks like the prototype for Samuel L. Jackson) and Bear (James Gandolfini, who later became a huge star on The Sopranos, also a Mafia-themed story), who gave him money to make a film called Gargoyles and aren’t sure they want their money moved into Mr. Lovejoy instead. In the end Chili and Zimm become partners producing a film called Get Shorty, based on chili’s own real-life experiences in the Mob, and Karen not only is officially named a producer on the project but appears in the final scene to be directing it as well. Get Shorty is a fun movie, and though it doesn’t have any characters in it you actually like, that bothers me less in a dark comedy than it does in a dramatic film. It’s also neatly acted; Sonnefeld is one director who’s able to get John Travolta’s severe limitations as a performer to work for him, and Hackman and Russo are excellent – as is DeVito, even though as I noted above, it’s hard to believe in him as a superstar actor whose agreement or refusal to make a particular movie can make or break its chances at the box office!