Film

Get Shorty

Name: Get Shorty
Genre: Comedy, Thriller, Crime
Released: 1995
Cast: John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina

Get Shorty is Elmore Leonard's cool, deadpan joke about how organized crime and the movie business run on the exact same currency: menace disguised as charm. Travolta's loan shark turned producer glides through Hollywood absurdity with barely raised eyebrows, and the pleasure is watching everyone else catch up to how dangerous he actually is. Breezy, funny, quietly cynical — a hangout crime comedy for people who like their violence implied and their punchlines dry.

TMDb rating

6.5

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Another Elmore Leonard novel turned into pure movie-star chemistry, Clooney and Lopez sizzling inside a heist plot as loose and cool as Get Shorty's. Soderbergh directs with the same wry patience, trusting charm to do the heavy lifting.

But The plot wanders more than it needs to, and if you're here for jokes rather than romance, it skews swoon over laugh.

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Tarantino's other Elmore Leonard adaptation is slower and sadder than Get Shorty but built from the same deadpan double-crosses, with career-best supporting turns from Robert Forster and Pam Grier.

But It's talkier and more melancholy than you might expect from a Tarantino crime film; patience required, payoff earned.

The Player1992

Robert Altman's vicious, star-stuffed satire about a studio executive who might actually be a murderer takes Get Shorty's premise — showbiz as organized crime — and plays it entirely straight-faced.

But Dated cameo-spotting is part of the fun, but if you don't know 90s Hollywood faces, some jokes will sail past.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Sweet Smell of Success1957

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Before Chili Palmer, there was Sidney Falco — Tony Curtis's oily press agent slithering through 1950s Broadway and gossip columns for Burt Lancaster's terrifying kingmaker. Same ruthless charm, same sense that manipulation is the only real skill in show business.

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Snatch2000

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Same engine as Chili Palmer — a criminal who turns out to be a natural at performance — but told across a TV series instead of two hours, letting the joke curdle into genuine horror as it goes.

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