posted by Scene -- @ 12:51 AM

Getting Shorted: F. Gary Gray’s “Be Cool”

“Ugh, sequels,” says Chili Palmer/John Travolta at the beginning of F. Gary Gray’s Be Cool. Travolta has started a film like this before, with his spiel at the beginning of Swordfish self-referentially commenting on the movie unfolding before us. Such cool detachment and self-awareness did not bode well for Swordfish, and here, for Be Cool, it bodes even worse.

You’d like to think there is something endearing or even intelligent about a movie that is able to recognize its own hack sensibilities. Josie and the Pussycats, for example, was able to weave a dumb story that intelligently let the audience in on why it was so dumb. (I’m still torn to this day, unable to decide whether Josie is brilliant or just fluff.) Be Cool, however, lets its own self-deprecation consume any and all social commentary or narrative drive, any sense of cool or hip or smart. It’s much like the funny guy in highschool who made so many jokes about himself that you started to believe him. It screams ‘pathetic’.

“You don’t have a film,” says Chili Palmer to record executive/movie producer hopeful, Tommy Athens/James Woods, in the opening scene. “You don’t have character arcs or a plot.” Fair enough. Seconds later, Be Cool forces a strained narrative to life by killing off Tommy, gunned down by a hitman who un-funnily shoots with one hand and keeps his toupee from flying off his head with the other.

Now drawn into Tommy’s world of music production and behind-the-scenes hustling, Chili finds himself romancing record executive Edie Athens/Uma Thurman (Tommy’s widow: it says so on her t-shirt), hooking up exploited singer Linda Moon/Christina Milian with a proper and respectable recording contract, all while fending off death threats from a Russian mob group, a gangsta hip-hop posse known as The Dub MDs (including producer Sin LaSalle/Cedric the Entertainer and MC Dabu/Andre 3000), and a thinks-he’s-black white music exec (Linda Moon’s former agent, Raji/Vince Vaughn) and his gay bodyguard (Elliot Wilhelm/The Rock.)

Milian does well and shows considerably more talent as an average actress than she does as a pop star (for such a good looking singer, she’s surprisingly bad at being sexy), but it is The Rock (real name Dwayne Johnson) as Elliot that proves to be the film’s only successful performance. Be Cool is the first movie to recognize that Johnson’s overwhelming success as a professional wrestler had nothing to do with his machismo and everything to do with his comedic capabilities. As The Rock, The Most Electrifying Man in Sports Entertainment, Johnson was nothing less than hilarious. Unfortunate that the film, on more than one occasion, has Elliot duplicate The Rock’s trademarked raised-eyebrow glare; the acknowledgement of “The Rock” also preventing him from rightfully disappearing into his character.

The Rock does the most he can with a tired, lifeless script. His commitment to such an underwritten role is admirable but also sad to watch, for the obscene wasting away of a breakthrough performance within this dirty toilet of a film. We are left with half-baked scenes such as when Elliot stares into a full-length mirror, admiring the way his ass looks in his new tight, polyester blue pants. He repeatedly slaps his own butt and even as the camera stubbornly refuses to cut away, The Rock stays committed to the gag.

This is but one example of Be Cool’s total lack of comedic timing. I don’t know if it’s the director’s, the editor’s, the screenwriter’s, or the actors’ fault, but none of the gags hit when they should. Jokes are drawn on for much longer than they should, sometimes cleaving into further, secondary, even less funny jokes. Often when a scene should end, the camera sticks around until someone attempts to do or say something funny, and only then will the film resume. Some jokes, such as Vince Vaughn’s “I’m a white boy who acts black” shtick, run the entire length of the film without ever realizing their staleness.

Vaughn’s perfunctory “wigger” is but one element in the miasma of stereotypes, racial or otherwise, that Be Cool plays with. Aside from the racially confused Raji and poor gay Elliot, there are also The Dub MDs, hulking muscle-bound gangsta rappers who roll through the suburbs wearing bulletproof vests and driving large black rides with perpetually spinning rims. Not to mention the Russian mafia, thickly accented and facially scarred, tossing around racial epithets and just wanting their money back. And (sigh) Ms. Bangkok, Linda Moon’s Asian backup dancer who spits mad rhymes in her native language and moonlights as a cheap dumb whore.

The only character that is offered reprieve from this is Sin LaSalle. Late in the third act LaSalle goes on a tirade about how the Black race is forever raped by culture vultures—providing the template for cool and the soundtrack to boot, but never receiving the appropriate cultural status in return. As satisfying as it is to hear, you get the sense that this isn’t the film talking but rather Cedric the Entertainer, inserting his own two cents into the film’s bankrupt social commentary. It’s a small consolation prize that doesn’t erase the film’s otherwise total lack of cultural understanding.

You could make the case that most Hollywood movies lack cultural understanding, and you would probably be right. But the problem with Be Cool is not that it toes the line, it stumbles all over it. There is an attempt at discourse here, as evidenced when the “N” word pops up out of nowhere, suddenly politicising the whole movie, but the film’s discussion is akin to a person talking a lot for a long time about nothing. Stereotypes are flipped, yes. Dabu is a black gangsta who can’t operate a gun. Elliot is a gay man who will kick your ass. Moon is an R&B pop singer who won’t shake her ass for money. But in the end the stereotypes win out. The black gangstas are redeemed to the white characters by their musical talent. Moon is just as sexualised in her final MTV performance as she was in that seedy bar. Elliot becomes a dancer. Perhaps that in and of itself is the commentary, but no, this is a typical happy ending with none of the introduction’s self-awareness or self-dissection. Ms. Bangkok, sadly, is probably still a cheap whore somewhere.

It's more than a little humorous when Elliot reads a monologue for Chili, being that he is reading lines from Bring it On. Not only because The Rock nails the scene, but because that movie had more to say about culture appropriation than Be Cool could ever hope too. (Not to mention it's funnier and features better performances and direction.)

Most interesting are the guest appearances from musical acts The Black Eyed Peas and Aerosmith. These groups bring together the races, both onscreen and off. Thus, white Chilly Palmer and Edie Athens have their first dance (gratingly, the second such dance for Travolta and Thurman) during a hiphop show. Black Linda Moon gets her big break opening for a white rock band. As a real band, The Black Eyed Peas crossed over to white audiences with the inclusion of white female singer, Fergie (and for the most part left their black audience behind). Aerosmith, conversely, achieved their big comeback in the late eighties with a seminal duet with black rap group Run DMC. Their presence here adds an interesting element to the white/black mixing going on in the narrative, but the film places way too much importance on two musical acts who, currently, couldn’t be any less relevant to their respective genres. For a film supposedly all about being cool, the characters couldn’t be any more out of touch.

Be Cool puts a lot on its plate and has all the ingredients for an intelligent, funny satire on race and the music industry. But still—putting a bunch of crap on a slab of dough and tossing it into the oven won’t always make you a pizza. Be Cool has all of the elements but has no idea what to do with them. Or rather, obviously doesn’t even care. Effortlessly cool, or just lacking effort?

The post-credit sequence features all of the actors and guest stars dancing onset, in between takes, to the sounds of rap music. Disingenuous, hackneyed, and lacking any sense of genuine comedy, the sequence encapsulates all that is wrong with the film. As it turns out, Chili Palmer was right, and he spends the entire movie smirking at us.

Jef.Catapang