Review of Get Shorty (1995) by Timothy J — 23 Feb 2015

Elmore Leonard is probably one of my favorite writers, but I've only read one of his books. I've never been much of a book reader as you tell by my daily movie blog. That being said the characters and stories he's written have inspired some of the most engrossing dialogue scenes between the quirkiest criminals of all time. Out of Sight, Jackie Brown and TV's Justified have contained some of my favorite dumb criminals whose plans blow up (often literally) in their faces. Get Shorty was a huge moment for the crime novelist's career and has one of the best ensemble casts of the 90's.

The plot bobs and weaves with turns to involve a stunt man, Columbians, the DEA and a movie star. It's not a movie you can half watch since every scene front loads so much detail, but the great thing about Leonard's front-loading is the charm. It's an LA movie so there's lot of lunch meetings and couch chats about investments, but even with all this dialogue it still stay sharp. Charismatic killers want to chat about movies and philosophy, but you never forget they might actually shoot someone in the face.

The strongest element of this movie (aside from the great writing) is the ensemble cast who all have a lot to work with too. Delroy Lindo & Dennis Farina are excellently menacing, Devito plays an unusually vapid part, and Travolta is outstanding in his big post-Pulp Fiction role. My favorite, though, is Gene Hackman. He's no longer making films, but he's amazingly hilarious here in a dopey comedic role, and it's enough to make you miss the talent that he brought to the screen.