Be Cool- **1/2

I knew walking into Be Cool that I really shouldn't expect much. You know when the press focuses on "Travolta and Thurman dancing AGAIN!!!!" instead of the actual movie, you're in trouble. And what I got was, like last year’s Ocean’s Twelve, a movie trying so hard to be cool that it was just annoying.

It’s a few years after Get Shorty, and Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is tired with the movie business. He soon finds himself in cahoots with the friend’s wife Edie (Uma Thurman) to produce Linda Moon (Christina Milian), a talented singer trying to make it big. Unfortunately, Linda under contract to Raji (Vince Vaughn) and Nick Carr (Harvey Keitel), who aren't about to let go of a good thing. Palmer also has to contend with the aforementioned Russian mob, and gangsta rap group The WMDs led by the silly Dabu (Andre Benjamin), and managed by Sin LaSalle (Cedric the Entertainer), who blame Palmer for his friend dying without paying them their royalties. So you'd think there would be enough plot to sustain the two-hour movie, right?

Wrong. With so much going on, nothing seems to really be happening. You can feel director F. Gary Gray trying very hard to be as cool as Sonnenfeld was in Get Shorty, but missing the mark entirely. The movie derails itself by stopping every fifteen minutes or so to become a music video for Christina Milian. The worst is a long scene of her singing "Crazy" onstage with Aerosmith. Because, I guess, we all needed to hear that song one more time... There is also a short pause about halfway through the movie to not only showcase the Black Eyed Peas, but to have Travolta and Thurman dance together. Great. The dance is not only trying to pointlessly piggy-back on Pulp Fiction, but goes on way too long. And really, would Chili Palmer be going to Black Eyed Peas concerts?

I blame most of the movie's problems on the screenplay by Peter Steinfeld, which is more concerned with making stupid Hollywood in-jokes than putting together a credible movie. The first line of the movie is Travolta moaning, "I hate sequels." Ha ha ha. The movie borrows so much from Get Shorty. Sure, some similarities are inevitable, but this comes off as just lazy. Again, the bad guy has the reluctant bodyguard. Again, the one thing everyone is trying to get their hands on is squirreled away in a place under police surveillance etc…

There are bright points to the movie though. The Rock, as the gay, wanna-be actor/bodyguard Eliot, is hilarious. He creates the most interesting and funny character in the movie...he even manages to make the eyebrow joke work. Sadly, Vince Vaughn starts out funny, but by the end the tiresome “White-guy-acting-black” just becomes grating. Andre Benjamin is hilarious as the gangsta without a clue. His best scene is toward the end, while drinking tea, prompting one of the best lines, "Dabu! Tea is NOT GANGSTA!"

I can't really recommend this movie. It may vaguely entertain fans of Get Shorty (or The Rock), but I would recommend just putting in Get Shorty and remembering how cool crime capers SHOULD be.