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Get Shorty: Scriptbook
Nobody writes openings like Elmore Leonard. Case in point: "When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio's on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off." You need to know about this because you need to know why there's bad blood between Chili Palmer and Ray Bones, the guy who stole his coat and is now his boss--and has ordered him to collect $4,200 from a dead guy. Except the guy didn't die; he went to Las Vegas with $300,000. So Chili goes to Las Vegas, one thing leads to another, and pretty soon he's in Los Angeles, hanging out with a movie producer named Harry Zimm and learning what it takes to be a player in Hollywood.
Get Shorty is classic Elmore Leonard: While other people write "crime fiction," Leonard's come up with a masterful social comedy that happens to be about criminals (and other fast operators). He's a master of snappy dialogue and dizzying plot twists. The best parts of Get Shorty move along so briskly you almost forget there's somebody with a firm control over the story. And you'll be rooting for Chili to get the money, the girl, and the studio deal. --Ron Hogan
Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 17, 2019
Chilly Palmer wants to go into the movie business, he’s tired of being the tough guy the mob can push around. It's mayhem, he needs all his wit and sharp to dodge it; all he really wants to do is make a movie!!!
From the first page, the comedy spills out. I have not seen the movie but as a read it's very funny and entertaining.
From the first page, the comedy spills out. I have not seen the movie but as a read it's very funny and entertaining.
August 31, 2025
Get Shorty, written by Scott Frank, based on the novel by Elmore Leonard
10 out of 10
What an exuberant film!
Get Shorty is exhilarating, smart, funny and a wonderful entertainment!
The acting is outstanding!
Indeed, this formidable motion picture could be recommended as therapy for depressed individuals.
Humor is part of the Science of Happiness and the Positive Psychology course at Harvard has a lecture on it.
John Travolta as Chili Palmer reminds the audiences of his classic role in Pulp Fiction, although in a different register.
Vincent Vega is a criminal like Chili Palmer, but the methods used by the two characters are so different.
In fact, Chili Palmer, in spite of his profession, is admirable for the many Character Strengths that he possesses:
Persistence, Creativity- he even thinks of a screenplay- Curiosity, Open-mindedness, Love of Learning and
Perspective, not so much Citizenship though, Mercy in some moments, Self- regulation at others, plus
Bravery, Vitality, Social Intelligence, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Gratitude, Hope and Humor
Chili Palmer is a loan shark with a very outré passion for the movies that he goes out to see whenever he has a chance.
He even knows dialogues by heart.
When Orson Wells is facing Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich in the classic A Touch of Evil, Palmer has all the lines.
The hero arrives in Hollywood, coming from Miami, to collect the debt of a silly man who had such incredible luck.
While waiting for his airplane in a bar, he can see it destroyed in a cascade of flames and fumes.
This man owed money and he wants to take advantage and pretend he died in that plane accident.
He was after all registered as being on board, only he was off for some time, due to the delay in takeoff.
Chili Palmer tracks him, but this is just a small part of the complex plot that includes the hero thinking of…
A script for film that actually includes this unbelievable narrative of the plane crash, the debt and the rest.
He wants the director Harry Zimm aka the otherworldly, always fantastic Gene Hackman involved, together with his companion Karen Flores aka Rene Russo and Martin Weir alias Danny DeVito.
There are other colorful, funny characters involved, from Bo Catlett to his muscle man Bear, played by the late James Gandolfini.
Another departed artist, the fabulous Dennis Farina has a role similar to the part he had in Snatch.
All these figures create a marvelous mosaic of competing loan sharks, movie actors and directors.
The result is mesmerizing.
Alas, it did not work so well for the sequel… Be Cool.
However, Get Shorty has all the elements of exquisite, intelligent, fresh, creative, even self-deprecating humor.
The Hollywood characters are depicted with friendliness, but there is satire and idiosyncrasies are exposed.
In addition, what a tremendous cast, again:
John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, James Gandolfini are absolutely sensational!
- “Hey, Harry! Look at me!”
10 out of 10
What an exuberant film!
Get Shorty is exhilarating, smart, funny and a wonderful entertainment!
The acting is outstanding!
Indeed, this formidable motion picture could be recommended as therapy for depressed individuals.
Humor is part of the Science of Happiness and the Positive Psychology course at Harvard has a lecture on it.
John Travolta as Chili Palmer reminds the audiences of his classic role in Pulp Fiction, although in a different register.
Vincent Vega is a criminal like Chili Palmer, but the methods used by the two characters are so different.
In fact, Chili Palmer, in spite of his profession, is admirable for the many Character Strengths that he possesses:
Persistence, Creativity- he even thinks of a screenplay- Curiosity, Open-mindedness, Love of Learning and
Perspective, not so much Citizenship though, Mercy in some moments, Self- regulation at others, plus
Bravery, Vitality, Social Intelligence, Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, Gratitude, Hope and Humor
Chili Palmer is a loan shark with a very outré passion for the movies that he goes out to see whenever he has a chance.
He even knows dialogues by heart.
When Orson Wells is facing Charlton Heston and Marlene Dietrich in the classic A Touch of Evil, Palmer has all the lines.
The hero arrives in Hollywood, coming from Miami, to collect the debt of a silly man who had such incredible luck.
While waiting for his airplane in a bar, he can see it destroyed in a cascade of flames and fumes.
This man owed money and he wants to take advantage and pretend he died in that plane accident.
He was after all registered as being on board, only he was off for some time, due to the delay in takeoff.
Chili Palmer tracks him, but this is just a small part of the complex plot that includes the hero thinking of…
A script for film that actually includes this unbelievable narrative of the plane crash, the debt and the rest.
He wants the director Harry Zimm aka the otherworldly, always fantastic Gene Hackman involved, together with his companion Karen Flores aka Rene Russo and Martin Weir alias Danny DeVito.
There are other colorful, funny characters involved, from Bo Catlett to his muscle man Bear, played by the late James Gandolfini.
Another departed artist, the fabulous Dennis Farina has a role similar to the part he had in Snatch.
All these figures create a marvelous mosaic of competing loan sharks, movie actors and directors.
The result is mesmerizing.
Alas, it did not work so well for the sequel… Be Cool.
However, Get Shorty has all the elements of exquisite, intelligent, fresh, creative, even self-deprecating humor.
The Hollywood characters are depicted with friendliness, but there is satire and idiosyncrasies are exposed.
In addition, what a tremendous cast, again:
John Travolta, Gene Hackman, Rene Russo, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Dennis Farina, James Gandolfini are absolutely sensational!
- “Hey, Harry! Look at me!”
August 23, 2009
I first read Get Shorty when the movie was about to hit theatres. The trailer interested me and the school library had just gotten a copy, so I started reading it over my lunches. I've read it a few times since, most recently during the downtime on my vacation. This last time I just tore through it at blinding speed.
Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty is a decent story, but its strength is that it reads like a movie -- despite a number of deviations from the book, the movie features all the best scenes from it, and even when you know something's been left out or added, those scenes play out exactly like you imagine them when you read the book. The odd thing about this is that isn't usually Leonard's strength; typically when you pick up an EL book, you're doing it for killer dialogue the likes of which inspired filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith.
Here, however, you just find wonderfully-staged and cleverly-executed scenarios that, quite frankly, need little to no context to work. The opening scene where Chili retrieves his jacket from Ray Bones, the scene at the restaurant where Chili throws The Bear down a flight of stairs, the scene where he pitches the actor Michael Weir by getting him to give him the shylock look, and so on, are all in keeping with the book's theme of gloriously satirizing Hollywood, lovingly executed like a Simon Pegg movie and deftly handled with the slickness of a Tarantino or a Guy Ritchie (or, not inappropriately, a Barry Sonnenfeld); Leonard's vocabulary acts as director, cinematographer and editor throughout the story.
Chili is a decent character, if cliched, but his strength is in his stance as a fish-out-of-water character. He approaches Hollywood maneuvering with the directness of a mobbed-up guy from a Miami-crime fiction story; he's a neanderthal at a fencing match, and his club is unexpectedly effective.
Elmore Leonard's Get Shorty is a decent story, but its strength is that it reads like a movie -- despite a number of deviations from the book, the movie features all the best scenes from it, and even when you know something's been left out or added, those scenes play out exactly like you imagine them when you read the book. The odd thing about this is that isn't usually Leonard's strength; typically when you pick up an EL book, you're doing it for killer dialogue the likes of which inspired filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith.
Here, however, you just find wonderfully-staged and cleverly-executed scenarios that, quite frankly, need little to no context to work. The opening scene where Chili retrieves his jacket from Ray Bones, the scene at the restaurant where Chili throws The Bear down a flight of stairs, the scene where he pitches the actor Michael Weir by getting him to give him the shylock look, and so on, are all in keeping with the book's theme of gloriously satirizing Hollywood, lovingly executed like a Simon Pegg movie and deftly handled with the slickness of a Tarantino or a Guy Ritchie (or, not inappropriately, a Barry Sonnenfeld); Leonard's vocabulary acts as director, cinematographer and editor throughout the story.
Chili is a decent character, if cliched, but his strength is in his stance as a fish-out-of-water character. He approaches Hollywood maneuvering with the directness of a mobbed-up guy from a Miami-crime fiction story; he's a neanderthal at a fencing match, and his club is unexpectedly effective.
August 15, 2016
So, I don't often read playscripts for pleasure. At all. The new J.K. Rowling and re-enactments of Greek tragedies aside, of course. However, this was sitting desertedly on some dirt cheap book stand, and so managed to worm it's way into my life that way. That being said, my experience of reading this action-gangster-film-maker-tome was movie-sharp, gung-ho vivid, exciting and unforgettable. The characters came across just as they might in a novel, with their motivations, psychologies and physical appearances fleshed out impressively. This was a free playscript which seems to have been given away with Esquire magazine, whilst the film epic 'Get Shorty' was still hip 'n cool. Hopefully at least a few people managed to read it, rather than dumping it on the coffee table so that they might look literate and artsy. It's a good read. The only negative I'd report is that having later seen a trailer for the movie, minor aspects of the film characters differ from the picture created whilst reading the book. Le sigh.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews