`Be Cool' runs on empty

Be Cool, John Travolta returns as Chili Palmer, the reformed mobster he first played in Barry Sonnenfeld's glibly entertaining 1995 adaptation of the Elmore Leonard novel Get Shorty. That movie arrived in theaters hot on the heels of Pulp Fiction, a film that in turn owed a serviceable debt to Leonard's oeuvre. But while Get Shorty rode the Pulp Fiction craze with finesse, largely propelled by Travolta's star presence and a screenplay from Scott Frank that distilled the original book to perfection, Be Cool is running on empty and fueled by nothing more than the faintest vapors left over from those earlier successes.

Directed by F. Gary Gray -- a director with a clutch of tight thrillers to his name, notably Set It Off and the crackling remake of The Italian Job -- this new film was written by Peter Steinfeld, whose draggy, generally unfunny screenplay for Be Cool packs in a lot of the same characters from the Leonard novel -- the sequel to Get Shorty -- and far too much of its overworked, conceptually anemic plot.

Having tried his hand at movie producing in the first story, Chili this time turns his attention to the music business, or more precisely, to two of its hopefuls: a record producer, Edie Athens (Uma Thurman), and a young R&B singer, Linda Moon (Christina Milian). Complications and bad behavior ensue -- most generated by various stereotypes sporting gold chains and attitude.

The sole exception to this parade of unsavory types is a gay Samoan bodyguard, Elliot Wilhelm, played with great good humor by the Rock. Charming and unexpectedly funny, the Rock wears his muscles and his role lightly. Although the character is subjected to a number of crude gay epithets, none of which I recall from the novel, the Rock deflects their sting by making Elliot into a pussycat and stealing the show.

Elliot looks like a stone-cold killer, but that isn't the part he yearns to play: he sings (his cover of Loretta Lynn's You Ain't Woman Enough is all heart and no ear), but what he really wants to do is act. His audition monologue for Chili will be the only reason to recommend Be Cool when it shows up on DVD.

Shortly after the movie opens, Edie loses her husband, a new status she greets with a lot of hard drinking and a series of black T-shirts emblazoned with the words mourning and widow.

This is about as funny as the rest of the movie gets and as creatively ambitious.

Like the novel, Be Cool is crammed with situations and characters, none of which inspire interest (among those overstaying their onscreen welcomes are Harvey Keitel, Vince Vaughn and Cedric the Entertainer, outshone by the Rock and Andre Benjamin, aka Andre 3000 of OutKast).

Like the characters, the scenes pile up but go nowhere; the story seems fragmented, the actors unmotivated, unmoored. Gray has a feel for pulp, but is seriously off his game here.

Travolta, wearing black and the glazed look of the overly pampered and chronically bored, is the film's gravest disappointment. Conveying diffidence rather than cool, he registers more like a reluctant guest than a star. Mostly, he doesn't register at all.

Gone is the self-assured stride, with its animal heat and infectious rhythms, and gone, too, is the expansive sense of pleasure Travolta brings to his finest performances, as if he were delighted to be there and wanted us to be just as happy.