GET SHORTY: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
Loan shark Chili Plamer (John Travolta) is sent to L.A. to put the squeeze on B-movie master Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman). He ends up pitching his own plot and script to Zimm. His deal for an intro to Hollywood is to take on Zimm's creditors - and a promise not to break his legs. Palmer's plan requires a star for his movie and with the help of Zimm’s help he turns to B list star Karen Flores (Rene Russo) through whom he meets up with Martin Weir (Danny Devito). Palmer proceeds to persuade him, gangster style, to join his team.

"Along with The Player, Singing In The Rain and Ed Wood, Get Shorty is a quintessential Hollywood film, one of the better satires on filmmaking where the philosophy, as everyone knows, is that Mafia crooks are not as crooked as Hollywood producers. It also marked yet another successful workout for John Travolta as the redoubtable Chili Palmer, a film buff who has a day job as a collector and thug for the Mob, finds his way to Hollywood to collect money from a producer (the almost unrecognizable Gene Hackman in a delightful change of
pace) and decides that making movies is a much better criminal pursuit. Packed with recognizable faces – Danny DeVito is the big time star, Rene Russo is the star of some really bad exploitation films, Dennis Farina is a mobster, Delroy Lindo is another crook on the make and James Gandolfini is a stunt man in the wrong game – and Bette Midler flounces through without a credit. So there it is, available on DVD but it is a basic DVD with only languages and subtitles available. True the disc does come with a booklet crammed with interesting facts, but, hey guys, where in the modern electronic age now and this should, as they have managed with other films, included on the DVD somewhere. Still among the gems netted are the fact that Danny DeVito was first slated to play Chili Palmer, there is a real Chili Palmer who took up work as a private investigator, and because in flight movies don’t show plane crashes, the early and crucial sequence turned into a train crash. The quality of the print and sound is superb but if you are looking for more information, you have to take the little booklet out."
Paul LePetit

DVD RELEASE: January 10, 2000