Be Cool DVD Review
What's cool, you might ask, apart from the name of this site, and when you stumble across the show Be Cool, you might think that's cool ...
Wrong. Be Cool isn't so much cool as lukewarm, the kind of limp noodle you get when a story line is reheated a second time.
It's a rip of Get Shorty, in itself a rip of any number of shows trading on the comedy value of cute mobsters. John Travolta returns to reprise his role of mobster turned movie producer Chili Palmer, with the music industry replacing the movie industry as the new riff to introduce a variety of kooks and cranks.
Travolta feels like he's about to induce the same kind of comatose reaction produced by all the turkeys he made before his career was revived by Quentin Tarantino. He can play these kinds of roles standing on his head, but there's a sameness about the styling - been there and done that - which says it's only cool to anyone who likes porridge. Not that there's any need to get personal, but Travolta's a little pudgy to be totally cool, and as for scientology ... how cool can a Thetan be when it bounces out of a volcano?
Christina Milan turns up as a singer, while Uma Thurman - an almost obligatory partner in this kind of show - plays a widow who naturally attracts Travolta's attention. They might even get all funky, and dance down together ... now there's a twist.
Proving that the show is in fact really after desperate twists to stay alive, the Rock turns up as a gay bodyguard wanting to break into the movie industry. Now I've got a soft spot for the Rock - at least when he's doing the macho strut - but he's not too flash at this kind of self parody, joining Schwarzenegger and Vinnie the fuel man in attempting comedy when their real strength is being plastic action heroes with one liners every time you pull on the piece of string.
The English do their own riff on this kind of gangster show - starting with The Long Good Friday, and heading up on through shows like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels - and you might be just as well be off getting a whiff of the gor blimey from the vid shelf as taking in this kind of 'second serve stiff porridge' product.
Be Cool did an okay $4.226m at the Australian box office - it really needed to cross the five mill mark before it achieved even Fonz cool status - and that figure places it where it should sit in your head, as a niche product doing familiar things for folks who like predictable strokes. On a good day you might give it two or three stars to show the fridge of human kindness is still flowing ...
The show is now out in rental stores across the nation (release date 14th September 05) and can be picked up at your leisure but you must have plenty of cash and a limp noodle if you're thinking you need to buy it so you can watch it a couple more times down the years.
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