The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 80

FILM The Cincinnati Enquirer Friday, October 20, 1995 21 Visits Thvolta tallest in 'Shorty' All-star cast dazzles in Leonard's parody of movie biz CRITIC'S PICKS TOP ART FILM: Mute Witness (R) It's a comedy! It's a satire! It's a mystery! It's a slasher film! It's a detective tale! It's a mob movie! Turns out it's all of the above. Fun and DePal-ma-esque excess from British filmmaker Anthony Waller. At The Esquire. BY MARGARET A. McGURK The Cincinnati Enquirer oy, were we foo'M.

Here we were thinking Pulp Fiction was John Travolta's comeback 1 movie. Pulp Fiction was just a warm-up for Get Shorty. grade-Z movie producer Harry Zimm (Hackman), Chili who would rather watch James Cagney movies than bust kneecaps sees his chance to change professions. Before he can make his movie, he has to dispense with a head-spinning set of complications, including gym bags stuffed with ill-gotten dollars, Colombian drug dealers, his own angry ex-employer and the low-life sharks circling around Zimm. The film has a few too many characters coming and going a little too often, but that's an easy weakness to forgive because the writing is so funny, the action is so well-paced and the performances are so bright DeVito's wicked version of a self-absorbed superstar is worth the price of admission alone.

DeVito produced the movie; the director is Barry Sonnenfeld (The Addams Family). They and their dazzling cast have turned in an uproarious sendup of the movie business and its inexhaustible appeal to even the unworthiest acolytes. Travolta's bravura performance is as confident and unforced a piece of work as I have seen in a comedy in this case, a biting Hollywood satire based on a novel by the wonderful mystery writer Elmore Leonard. Delicious performances by Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina and Del-roy Lindo offer hilarious support, but it's Travolta's mellow hoodlum who keeps us wrapped up in the convoluted plot Get Shorty shares some elements of The Player, including surprise celebrity cameos, but it's a zanier, more light-hearted take on the subject, despite a much higher murder rate. Travolta plays Chili Palmer, a Miami loan shark whose boss (Farina) sends him off to find a FOR KIDS: Bafie (G) Hard to believe, but this funny fantasy about a pig who wants to be a dog is almost the only children's movie playing in town right now, at National Amusements.

Just for fun, let the kids check out Gordy, an earlier and less amusing talking-pig movie, for free at Northgate or Florence Showcase Cinemas this week with the Dove Family Film Festival. FOR TEEN-AGERS: Now and 77wfi (PG-13) Jf Few movies invest the kind of intelligence or grit in nearly-teen-aged girls that you'll see in the four kids in this nostalgic tale from the sum customer (David Paymer) who skipped out on a debt When the hunt leads to the V'4 r- K. Tough-guy actor not so cool in real life BY LUAINE LEE Knight-RidderTribune News Service Could anyone be more cool than John Travolta? Remember him in that white polyester suit flinging his partner across the floor in Saturday Night Fever? Or how about Vinnie Barbarino, the totally cool sweat-hog leader on TVs Welcome Back, Kotter? Or how about the sweet buff guy in Urban Cowboy? And there couldn't be anyone who's as cool as Travolta in Get Shorty. As the slick Chili Palmer, Travolta is the quintessential cool guy. But Travolta sees himself differently.

"I'm probably sort of a goofy guy," he says. "There are moments when I feel cool. But let me tell you about my feeling cool: It doesn't last I have such instant karma on being cool. I can count maybe five or 10 times in my life when I believed I was owl, and every one turned to instant karma slapping me in the face." As an example, Travolta tells of die muggy Sunday morning when he was feeling blah and decided to try on a little "cool" to make him feel better. "I have this beautiful red Jaguar, and I haven't driven it in three months.

It's Sunday and I'm feeling under the weather. I didn't sleep a lot and I haven't eaten yet and I gotta have a meeting with a director and I'm feeling drab. "I look at that car and tliink, 'If I were to turn down the top, if I were to have a cigar, if I were to turn on the theme from A Man and a Woman duh, duh, dull, la-di-dah-di-dah (he sings) and if I were to drive down Sunset Boulevard, perhaps, maybe, I might feel a little better, and I might be the cool movie star that I So Travolta tries it "I'm on Sunset Boulevard, got on sun glasses, the top's down and people are looking and whap! (the car stops) right on the curve of Sunset Boulevard. That's the curve where you always think 'If I were to get stuck, there it'd be awful because I'd get killed and I'd be My face is as red as the car. It won't start And honk, honk.

Oh, God why did I try to be cool. I see in my rear-view mirror some guy yelling I'm getting redder. I got out and tried to push. Then people recognize me. 'Oh, you need any 'No, I'm But I wasn't Suddenly this guy from one of the big mansions, he sees me and says, You need I say, So we push the car into his driveway.

That is what happens to me every time I actually believe for one second that I'm cool." He confesses that he thought he was kind of cool in high school. "I cared how I dressed. I cared about how I looked so people thought that was possibly cool. I thought it was good manners to dress well. So who knows?" Clockwise I I from left: Rene vN I Rnccn 1' tf I la Travolta, Gene I.

A if, Hackman and mer of 1970. The girls seem more 13-ish than 12, and they use lots of mild pro i it A fanities. But the performances by Gaby Hoffmann and Christina Ricci in particular are heartfelt and free of corniness. At National Amuse i ments. REVIEW HOW THEY 7 RATE Get Shorty (R; violence, strong language) John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Dennis Farina, Delroy Lindo.

105 minutes. At National Excellent Good Fair Poor" v-" No stars Bomb, I illiUM JJ i ii J. i ii i i i.