Get Shorty
"All I had to do was find the character's center. The stem. I used to wind him up and he'd play, man. He'd play."
I'm not sure there's ever been such a large gap between how much I enjoyed a movie and how much I expected to based on its title alone. I don't know exactly what Get Shorty evokes, but it's something unpleasant — vaguely reminiscent of Guy Ritchie rather than Shane Black, whose Kiss Kiss Bang Bang must have been influenced by this.
This movie is a romp: a bona fide good time from start to finish. It doesn't take itself too seriously, doesn't consider you too stupid, and is filled with snappy dialogue, funny jokes, and a clever-enoughThere's an ouroboros-esque quality to the staged reveals of various debts owed that I found satisfying to understand — and then to watch gleefully unfold. plot to justify its own existence.
It is all tied together by an arrestingly good performance from Travolta, without whom the movie does not cohere. It even has James Gandolfini, a few years before The Sopranos. What's not to love?
Perhaps Gene Hackman — whose performance was actually the reason I watched the film. Not because I'd heard it was uncommonly good, but merely because I'm trying to watch more of his work. He's completely fine; and perhaps his ability to be convincingly boring as a B-movie producer is, in and of itself, a seal of approval.