Get Shorty

Mob loan shark Chili Palmer turns movie producer when he’s sent to put the squeeze on a B-picture schlockmeister in this whip-smart Elmore Leonard adaptation.

Introduced by Kitty Robertson, Assistant Curator Outreach and Engagement, BFI National Archive

  • Director

    Barry Sonnenfeld

  • With

    John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Rene Russo

  • USA 1995. 105min

  • 35mm

  • Certificate

    15

Chili collects for the mob. He also loves movies. And it turns out the film business isn’t so different from the intimidation business. Chasing a debt from Miami to the Hollywood office of Harry Zimm, producer of sleazy horror flicks, Chili pitches a script while juggling who-owes-who. Oozing cool, crackerjack dialogue, Get Shorty features a cast Chili would kill for: Hackman as Harry Zimm; Farina, using swear words like commas, as Ray ‘Bones’ Barboni, and Russo as scream-queen Karen Flores, whose raised eyebrow does as much as her scene-stealing shriek. Chili himself is post-Pulp Fiction Travolta, all unruffled swagger. There’s also Delroy Lindo, James Gandolfini and the titular ‘Shorty’, Danny DeVito, who breakfasts with a view of his own billboard. The film screens from a pristine original UK release print.

Kitty Robertson