The Sunday Times (London)
March 10, 1996, Sunday
GET SHORTY 110 minutes, 15
The resurrection of John Travolta from his B-movie grave continues apace. Get Shorty, adapted from Elmore Leonard’s noir novel, allows The Actor Time Forgot a rare stab at light comedy and he grabs the knife with a relish that suggests disco dancing’s loss is humour’s gain. He plays Chili Palmer, a movie-buff and loan-shark sent to collect a gambling debt from schlock director Harry Zimm (Gene Hackman). Rather than break Zimm’s legs, however, he decides to muscle in on his latest project.
The mise-en-scene is set for a big-yuck analysis of how Hollywood and gangsterism are really just opposite sides of the same bad penny, with Danny DeVito, as megastar Martin Weir, making the whole thing seem more credible as he attempts to secure the green light for his ludicrous biopic of Napoleon. Slick, sexy and with more wacko dialogue than a schizophrenic’s convention, Get Shorty is the very definition of laughter in the dark.
RESTORATION118 mins, 15
Based on Rose Tremain’s celebrated 1989 novel, the film opens in 1663 as a dashing young medical student, Robert Merivel (Robert Downey Jr), pursues his studies at the Royal College of Medicine. Restless and bored by his inability to do good, Merivel fortuitously comes to the attention of the recently enthroned Charles II (Sam Neill). He is invited to court, where he is given the daunting task of saving the life of the king’s beloved spaniel.
In the end, Restoration resembles not so much its fine source novel as those extravagantly staged, immediately forgotten entertainments bored courtiers once enacted for each another. Michael Hoffman’s inability to find a consistent directorial tone is matched by a similar unease in screenwriter Rupert Walters, whose characters spend more time explaining the story to one another than participating in it.
Stephen Amidon
