I love Elmore Leonard books. Every time I pass by a tiny library, I want to stop and see if there’s a copy of anything he’s written. The translation to the screen isn’t usually great, however. It always seems like filmmakers and studios focus on the humour and not the stories or characters. Out of Sight is one of my Top Five Movies of All Time, and the TV series Justified is altogether excellent, but most Leonard adaptations are sadly forgettable.
To the best of my memory, Get Shorty was my introduction into the wonderful f-bomb-filled world of Elmore Leonard. A sorta gangster flick that takes place in the world of moviemaking. It stars John Travolta in what I think is his most iconic role (I’ve never seen Grease and he was a strong supporting actor in Pulp Fiction), even though I probably wouldn’t have thought of him for the part. He is Chili Palmer and probably should have gotten an Oscar nom for it if the whole film was just a bit higher in quality.
That’s not to say Get Shorty is a bad movie, nay, far from that. If anything, it’s just a little too polished for the story it’s telling. It can get heavily meta, and some of the humour is a bit cheesy. Feels like a Tarantino-lite, which an enormous amount of mid-to-late-90s movies did.
What an amazing cast, everyone top-notch. Travolta and his peak, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, a pre-Sopranos James Gandolfini, David Paymer, Dennis Farina, Bette Midler for some reason. Just incredible, and combining a cast that gets the material with a competent director like Barry Sonnenfeld, the end result is a highly entertaining and watchable movie, even if you don’t get all the references.
4 / 5
Mars Island 
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