There’s a scene in Get Shorty when the mob-connected loan shark Chili Palmer, played by John Travolta, watches a screening of Orson Welles’ classic noir Touch of Evil. Coming out of it, he tells the actor Karen Flores (Rene Russo): “You know, Welles didn’t even want to do this movie, he had a contract he couldn’t get out of. But sometimes you do your best work when you have a gun to your head.”
The essential joke of Get Shorty is that Hollywood often operates like organised crime. Based on a novel by Elmore Leonard – the US author whose works also inspired everyone from Quentin Tarantino to Steven Soderbergh – Get Shorty follows Chili from Miami to Las Vegas to Los Angeles. Trying to persuade the B-movie schlock producer Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman) to pay a gambling debt, Chili ends up pitching him an idea for a movie.
His pitch sounds like a certified gangland flick: about a dry-cleaner who owes money to the mob and scams an airline out of a financial settlement after a flight crashes. Turns out it’s based on a real associate of Chili’s – a shmuck named Leo Devoe (David Paymer) – which puts Leo and Chili in the crosshairs of a nasty kingpin.
If it seems as though I’m throwing a bunch of names at you, you’re right. Get Shorty is well aware of its complexities. “Where do you get all these names?” Harry asks Chili at one point, spoofing the film’s own kitschy characters.
And its self-satire is what makes the film so enjoyable. Everyone here plays a movie type with wonderful hard-boiled delivery. Hackman is brilliant as the bumbling movie guy Harry. Russo is sexy and tough as Flores, an actor tired of the trashy parts she’s been playing for Harry. She takes a liking to Chili and tries to help him and Harry recruit her former partner and now “A-list” actor, played with pretentious sleaze by Danny DeVito – the “Shorty” of the title.
As great as the whole cast is, it’s Travolta as Chili who owns the film. He is an effortlessly charismatic, street-smart lead. In one great scene he coaches DeVito on how to play a wiseguy: “Look at me the way I’m looking at you.” Travolta’s work here followed on the heels of his memorable turn in 1994’s Pulp Fiction, and Get Shorty can be seen as a cheerier companion to that film, delivering a similar brew of profane but witty humour with a noirish story.
Get Shorty is about some of the lowlifes and wannabe players in Hollywood but it’s also about those who, like Chili, are a sucker for the movies. Harry’s office is full of invented movie memorabilia; the soundtrack is pure jazz pastiche. This is a film enamoured by the flickering light of the cinema screen.
Outside that screening of Touch of Evil, Chili tells Karen about wanting to get away from his old racket. He complains about his bosses, “having to laugh at all their stupid comments, pretending they’re so funny”. She replies: “You think the movie business is any different?”
Chili softens. “Yeah, but I like movies.”
Get Shorty is available to stream on MGM+ in Australia, ITVX in the UK, and Prime Video in the US. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here
