Get Shorty a Witty Epix Makeover, a Review

In Barry Sonnenfeld‘s adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty, John Travolta plays Chili Palmer, a adept loan shark in the Miami mafia and the black comedy’s main protagonist. He talks a lot to people, but most of the time, he is direct and curt. When he’s owed money by someone, he visits them and stares at them as if he “owns” them. This tends to get the job done no matter where he is. The exception, of course, is Hollywood.

What happens in Get Shorty, the series, is that creator and writer Davey Holmes understands and embraces the DNA that made Leonard's book work, and yet creatively reimagines his own scenario where thieves and Hollywood intersect for a combination of violence and humour. It's a difficult balancing act but the first season proves to be successful.

Holmes has taken Leonard's story and given it some tweaks, making it distinctly different from the book and movie. O'Dowd plays Miles Daly, an enforcer for a small Nevada crime syndicate whose ruthless boss, Amara (Lidia Porto), is not shy about murdering her rivals out in the desert with the help of her unhinged nephew, Yago (Goya Robles), who thinks Miles needs to be taken out.

Miles himself is ready for a change. He's estranged from his wife, Katie (Lucy Walters), whom he's trying to win back, fuelled by his love for their 12-year-old daughter his ‘Shorty, Emma (Carolyn Dodd), whom he doesn't want to disappoint.

When Amara sends Miles and fellow enforcer/cleaner Louis (Sean Bridgers) to Los Angeles to collect on a debt from a screenwriter who was gambling to finance the best script he'd written, but nobody would make, fate opens a door to Hollywood and later, a B-rated movie producer, Rick Morewhether (Raymond Romano). Holmes cleverly executes a running theme across both the original book and the 1995 movie.

The reality of Leonard's book remains in Get Shorty — and that's an outsider's love for Hollywood, and how maybe crime and the movie business share the same low moral equivalency. On the one hand, as a comedy, it's sweeter, less sardonic and warmer toward Hollywood than even many films not involving gangsters; on the other, the parts that involve just the gangsters are dark and violent and not funny at all.

O’Dowd doesn’t have the megawatt charisma John Travolta brought to the movie version, but his scruffy friendliness sets the tone for the series as a whole. Although at first, doubts were raised about O'Dowd ability to play a darker role, when he is more popular comedic side of entertainment with his long term lovable character in The IT Crowd. It helps that he's 6'3" and tends to tower over the other characters, but he also very expertly plays a kind of nonchalant menace of a cinephile gangster. Generally he's amiable, but when he's in a situation that requires threat or violence, he handles it convincingly. In other words, he's excellent in the role.

Holmes’ revolutionary take on choosing a female lead as a mafia’s head creates a perfect atmosphere for viewers to expect the unexpected. The flirtatious and demanding boss is the revision’s best add-on because Porto executes an exceptional ambiance of nonchalance both in her gait and speech. This results in awe-deserving performance of her character further driven with her high-end and less than subtle clothing choice in the middle of the dusty deserts of Nevada.

A show like thus the risk of being compared to their antecedents. Luckily, Get Shorty, with a vast array of new characters and motivations, is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet, working at a much slower pace than that of the 100-minute film. Where Chilli (Travolta) would simply weasel out of danger, Miles (O’Dowd) gets stuck in life-threatening jams. The hour-long runtime allows the characters to work out of their dire dilemmas with a more realistic approach.

Created and written by: Davey Holmes, inspired by the Elmore Leonard book

Cast: Chris O'Dowd, Ray Romano, Sean Bridgers, Lidia Porto, Megan Stevenson, Goya Robles, Lucy Walters, Carolyn Dodd

Directed by: Allen Coulter