‘Be Cool’ Is the Best Bad Movie You Can Watch Over the Holidays

I’ve never done acid, but I have seen this nonsensical 2005 piece of ridiculousness — and I’d do it again

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

Somehow, 15 years ago, a sequel to Get Shorty got made. Like Get Shorty, it was based on an Elmore Leonard book of the same name, starring the same character — so it’s not like it got dreamed up by some coke-addled film executive. But on paper alone, you knew you were in for something weird. Directed by F. Gary Gray (!) and starring John Travolta reprising his role as mobster Chili Palmer, it also featured — this one’s gonna need a deep breath — Uma Thurman cashing a check between Kill Bill movies, The Rock playing a gay bodyguard with a mini afro and a goatee, Cedric The Entertainer as some sort of Suge Knight with Andre 3000 as his dimwitted tea-sipping nephew, Christina Milian as an R&B megastar akin to the next Beyoncé, and goddamn Steven Tyler somehow managing to poorly play Steven Tyler. I’m not going to try to convince you that it’s any better than its 30% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Because it isn’t. But somewhere inside it is trapped a wildly entertaining movie. And, like, most things in life, the movie’s badness is mostly…