Be Cool—The Movie?

Reviewed by D.K. Holm

s there another example out there of a novel that is really a sequel to a movie based on a book? Hannibal qualifies, I suppose, though Thomas Harris would never admit it. In any case it's clear that Be Cool (Delacorte Press, 294 pages $25, ISBN 0.385.33391.9) is a book meant to either cash in on, or more generously speaking, satisfy the fans of, Get Shorty, the movie made from the previous novel in Elmore Leonard's Chili Palmer series. Get Shorty was popular, but the movie was more so, and under the stewardship of director Barry Sonnenfeld and credited adaptor Scott Frank, it captured the very movie-like quality expressed in the book, an exasperated and delightfully vengeful parody of the movie biz. Supported by a good cast and a catchy score by John Lurie, the film had the quality of an unserious lark, which made its accurate hommages to cinema all the more poignant.

OK, so a few years later Leonard turns out a sequel. But can Be Cool, which takes Palmer into the music business, achieve the same cinematic or artistic success as its predecessor? And what is Leonard planning, to methodically plant Palmer in every major business in the nation? What's next?: Don't Wait, Chili's take on the fast food industry?

Well, if a book don't work, the odds are lessened that the movie will, and this book don't work. It is a slow, tedious, somewhat repetitious tale that both mirrors, and disimproves on Get Shorty. Among the biggest of its many disappointments is Leonard's dropping of the delightful Karen Flores character (played, of course, by the delightful Rene Russo in the film). Did Leonard know that the actress wouldn't or couldn't be in the movie, so he changed the character to the brittle Jewish movie executive Chili falls in with? But losing characters isn't the only problem; the whole book is a drag. On the other hand, when has a bad novel prevented Hollywood from making a movie from it, especially when it is a bestseller and has a host of built in high profile advertisable signifiers, thanks to its being a "sequel."

Like a James Michener exercise in bulimia, pouring his extensive research into the Procrustean bed of a thin plot, Leonard talked to a bunch of people and read some books on the subject and purports to take us behind the scenes of the music industry. That what he says is either obvious, well-know, or already out of date probably has more to do with the exigencies of publishing than the diligence of his investigations, though one suspects that Leonard can't escape the status of a square when it comes to music. But this plot stalls in explaining stuff about a relatively unfamiliar industry, unlike the movie biz, which everyone knows about. The pot pauses frequently so that Palmer can interview someone about the details of the new racket he's in.

Leonard's strong suit is effortless seeming but highly complex and satisfying plotting, strung along with very readable and realistic sounding dialogue. But this book is simply boring. And the plot, which blends together Palmer trying to write a new screenplay with him helping a girl break free her band from a shady black manager, and his own escaping a bunch of Russian hoods, might have made for some successful elements if both he didn't have to stop every 10 pages and lecture the reader, and he didn't seem to feel the need to replicate high points of the previous book / film.

ny potential adaptor of this tale is going to have to confront the same problems that plague the book. The audience is unfamiliar with the music industry itself. How to get around that? Rely on recognizable clichés, as in The Bodyguard? If Singles indicated anything, it is that mainstream audiences are not that interested in the music biz per se. Music, yes, but the machinations behind the scenes? It's just not as interesting, as glamorous as movies.

So what you are left with is a rather ordinary plot set in Los Angeles in which Palmer, once again, must pull a Red Harvest and get all his enemies to off themselves. Assuming that the forthcoming script ends up being worth a tinker's damn, it's possible that Travolta, who will be 46 if the movie comes out in 2000, might charm his way through it if he lays off the jelly donuts. However, none of the characters, even the villains, are particularly interesting or attractive people, unlike the selfish director of Gene Hackman or the focused malice of the great Delroy Lindo or the charismatic ignorance of Dennis Farina's cut-rate gangster.

The thing to do is to perform once again the usually reprehensible triage that Hollywood has done for decades to the howls of critics -- that is, junk most of the book and come up with a better, different story (even if you have to hire Leonard to write it). Going forward with this tale as it is would be to wreck the franchise. The best thing to do would be to drag back most of the characters, such as Harry Zimm and Karen and explore what their lives are like after the success of the "Get Shorty" movie, which Leonard does only at the very beginning of his story. Sure, stick in some elements of the music biz story. But ultimately, that's dead weight, a drag on the narrative flow.

Don't get us wrong. Like everyone else, we would welcome a new Chili Palmer film. But also like everyone else, we would relish Be Cool only if it were as cool as the first one in the series, different, but familiar, too. That's just the kind of potential movie it is.

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