Be Cool

Review by Jason Gaston

John Travolta, currently on one of the many downhill slopes that is the rollercoaster of his sorted career, is back and trying to milk his Pulp Fiction/Get Shorty success with a sequel to the latter and lesser movie. It's Be Cool and it be anything but.

The film opens with Travolta's lone shark-turned-producer, Chili Palmer, elbowing his way into the music business. He takes a singer away from an unbelievably annoying Vince Vaughn - who acts black even though he's whiter than snow and, yes, it is as funny as it sounds - and gets himself into a whole string of trouble that includes bumbling Russian mobsters and a gang of black movie producers led by Cedric the Entertainer that struck me as the most racist thing I've seen on the screen in a long time.

Be Cool is a self-referential movie that knows it's a movie and, worse... knows it's a sequel. Every character in every scene, it seems, is referencing something as if this movie is that annoying fat guy sitting next to you in the theater elbowing you in the ribs and asking you over and over again, "Get it? Get it?"

Steven Tyler shows up as himself saying, "I'm not one of those rock stars that appears in movies."

"Get it? Get it?"

Chili complains about someone getting him to do a sequel.

"Get it? Get it?"

Be Cool is a disconnected movie that can best be described as a much of random scenes that someone threw against the wall and tacked a paper-thin plot to.

The stuff that is supposed to be funny isn't and the references to other movies, the stars, and the movie itself become tiring long before the actual movie ends.

Be Cool is just an unmitigated failure. John Travolta coasts through the movie just waiting for that check to hit his hand and capitalizing on other movies that made him successful. Don't believe me? Why else would he take the dance floor with Uma Thurmond for no reason?

Amazingly, the only thing about this movie that I found remotely funny was The Rock playing a closeted gay bodyguard and it was funny to me simply because... well... it was The Rock and he was playing a gay bodyguard.

It's bright and colorful, but it's all hollow and lame. Call this one Ain't Cool and stay away!