In 1995’s Get Shorty, John Travolta stars as Chili Palmer.

Chili is a loan shark for the mob, an effortlessly cool guy who lives in Miami and who loves to watch old movies.  Chili may work for the Mafia and he may make his living by intimidating people but he doesn’t seem like such a bad guy, especially when compared to someone like Ray “Bones” Barboni (Dennis Farina).  Bones is an uncouth and rather stupid gangster who steals Chili’s leather jacket from a restaurant.  Chili reacts by breaking Bones’s nose with just one punch.  Bones reacts by trying to shoot Chili but instead, he gets shot by Chili himself.  (The bullet only grazes his forehead.)  Chili can do all this because he’s protected by Momo (Ron Karasbatsos) but, after Momo drops dead after having to walk up several flights of stairs just to then be given a surprise birthday party, Chili suddenly finds himself working for Bones.  (This all happens in the first few minutes of this perfectly paced film.)

Bones, eager to humiliate Chili, sends him to Vegas to collect on a debt owed by a dry cleaner named Leo (David Paymer).  Leo is thought to be dead but Bones wants to collect the money from Leo’s widow.  It’s not the sort of thing that Chili likes to do so instead, he ends up going to Hollywood to collect a debt from B-movie director Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman).  Chili  happens to like Harry’s movies.  He also likes Harry’s current girlfriend and frequent co-star, actress Karen Flores (Rene Russo).

Chili ends up in Hollywood, a town where everyone has some sort of hustle going.  Chili finds himself dealing with drug dealers (Delroy Lindo), egocentric film stars (Danny DeVito), stuntmen-turned-criminals (James Gandolfini), and the widow (Bette Midler) of a screenwriter.  Chili also finds himself looking to escape from the debt collection business by becoming a film producer.  Harry has a script that he wants to make.  Chili proposes a film based on the story of Leo the dry cleaner.  Danny DeVito’s Martin Weir wants to be a “shylock” in a movie just so he can show off his intimidating stare.  (“Is this where I do the look?” he asks while listening to the pitch.)  Get Shorty is a whip-smart satire of Hollywood, one in which the gangsters want to be film people and all of the film people want to be gangsters.  It features wonderful performances from the entire cast, with Travolta epitomizing cool confidence as Chili Palmer.  Hackman, Russo, DeVito, Gandolfini, and Lindo are all excellent in their supporting roles but I have to admit my favorite performance in the film is probably given by Dennis Farina, who turns Bones Barnobi into a very believable (and a believably dangerous) buffoon.

Get Shorty is based on a book by Elmore Leonard.  First published in 1990, the book is a quick and entertaining read, one that reminds us that Leonard was one of the best “genre” writers of his time.  When I read that book, I was surprised to see how closely the movie stuck to the book’s plot.  Much of the film’s dialogue is right there in the book.  It’s a book that practically shouts, “Turn me into a movie!” and fortunately, director Barry Sonnenfeld did just that.