Be Cool

Reviews > DVD > May 2005

By Joseph GaliwangoThe array of stars assembled for Be Cool gives it the potential, on the surface, of being packed with entertainment. You pick up the DVD and you're compelled to wonder how the Rock with a mini-afro, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, and the rest of the jam-packed cast are going to bounce off of each other in this crime-comedy? This film looks like a star-studded affair with definite promise. However, Be Cool is a piss-warm experience in Hollywood cheesiness that amounts to time completely wasted. Travolta is the centrepiece of this disaster. His ex-gangster character Chili Palmer, who grows tired of trying to make it in film and switches to music, is the one that hurts the film the most. Andre 3000 of Outkast takes second place in the "hurting the film" awards by playing an eccentric rap-buffoon who diversifies the stupidity in this cheese-fest. The supporting cast does manage to produce a bit of good comedy, namely Vince Vaughn and the Rock, who play a deluded music manager and a hulking, equally deluded homosexual bodyguard, respectively. Unfortunately, their turns gets choked by they sappy vocal chemistry of Christina Milian and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith. This film is based on an Elmore Leonard novel and past Leonard film adaptations have been pretty good, but not so here. Be Cool, the film, is close to awful but Be Cool, the DVD, is full of slick extras. There is a commentary by director F. Gary Gray and featurettes on some of the characters from the supporting cast like Andre 3000 and the Rock. There's also a featurette on John Travolta and Uma Thurman's ill-reprised dance sequence. This produces a three-way tie on the Be Cool DVD for driest moment. The other two being Travolta and Thurman's spoken sequences in the film, and lastly their contributions to the DVD's gag reel. All lame as hell. (MGM)

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