Miles Daly (Chris O’Dowd) and his henchman Louis Darnell (Sean Bridges) work for the Nevada mob boss Amara De Escalones (Lydia Porto). Amara is involved in the supply of drugs, laundering her dirty money on the side and takes on any business that promises her a good profit. Miles and Luis are mainly involved in the elimination of corpses resulting from Amara’s business operations.
Miles’ wife Katie (Lucy Walters) strongly disapproves of her husband’s occupation, and as a result, she left him six months ago, taking their daughter Amy (Carolyn Dodd) with her. Miles takes this very hard, but he knows that Cathy will only return if he changes his line of work.
And then Miles suddenly turned up a happy opportunity. Amara sent them with Luis to Hollywood to collect debts from a screenwriter who is not going to return the borrowed money. Miles must either get the money or kill the screenwriter. When they find a screenwriter, he claims that he doesn’t have any money yet, but he wrote an amazing script for a costume drama, which will definitely earn a lot of money, and then he will return everything.
Luis shoots the screenwriter, Miles appropriates the script, and he has an interesting idea: what if you talk Amara into investing in a movie based on this script? If the deal works out, then Miles can become a producer, because someone has to be on the set to look after Amara’s interests, right?
Miles finds a small-time producer Rick Morweather (Ray Romano), who is in a desperate situation and is ready to take on any project, blackmails the punchy producer April Quinn (Megan Stevenson), who works for the large Gravity Pictures studio, and takes advantage of the fact that Amara does not have a partnership with the owner of a large entertainment network, who must launder her money: as a result, Amara agrees to invest in the production of the film.
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Get Shorty is a 1995 film by Barry Sonnenfeld. A whole constellation of actors played in it: John Travolta, Danny DeVito, Rene Russo, Bette Midler, Dennis Farina, James Gandolfini and Gene Hackman. The film was based on the story “The Contract with Shorty” by a very popular writer Leonard Elmore: forty-three films were shot based on his books and scripts, including Tarantino’s “Jackie Brown”, the continuation of “Get Shorty”, the film “Be Cool”, “Train to Yuma” and others.
The new series, whether with a book or a film of the same name, has little in common, except for the very idea that a certain bandit comes to Hollywood, where, under the influence of circumstances, he begins to engage in film production, while not forgetting about his old methods of work, which at this filmmaking influences in the most invigorating way.
In the film, the same mobster Chili Palmer (John Travolta) was a Miami racketeer who came to Hollywood to collect a favor from a cunning businessman, on the way looked at a burned-out film producer who owed money to an old friend of Chili, and the producer said that he’s got a cool script that could make a blockbuster, especially if he’s coaxed hard-boiled star Martin Weir (Danny DeVito) into the film.
In the series, Miles is not a racketeer at all, but a “cleaner” – a person who hides corpses. And it is clearly shown that when he and Luis are sent to Hollywood on the instructions of Amara to get money from the screenwriter or shoot him, Miles indignantly says that they do not do such things, their task is to get rid of corpses.
Well, then – a manuscript that accidentally fell into the hands, Miles’ acquaintances with a couple of producers, a good moment with Amara, who has nowhere to launder her money – and everything began to spin.
The choice of Chris O’Dowd to play the thug was somewhat surprising at first. Prior to this, the usual role of Chris – a charming gouging. That was Roy from The Geeks, Simon from Rock Wave, and Jack from Calvary. And then – a bandit, and even a killer.
However, O’Dowd, in my opinion, coped well with the role. It’s not a comedy like the old movie, it’s a tragicomedy, and Miles is more tragic than comic. He sincerely wants to change jobs, he is seriously interested in filmmaking, and he has to solve a bunch of all sorts of problems, and since he has such a scary person as Amara as an investor, from time to time his life hangs in the balance.
Well, I liked the line of Miles with his ex-wife Katie: Miles is touchingly trying to restore their relationship, which Katie is not so opposed to, because Miles seems to have changed, he seems to be now a film producer.
O’Dowd turned out a good character – interesting, realistic. Not at all like the types that Chris portrayed before.
His partner Louis, played by Sean Bridges, is just quite comical. He is Mormon, so he doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke, and can’t have sex with a woman who isn’t his wife. But his faith quite allows him to kill people, and he indulges in this occupation quite piously. Luis has a funny romance with Rick’s assistant producer Gladys – she was excellently played by Sarah Styles (she played in “Billions”). Their conversation about how Sean can’t have sex with someone other than his wife is just hilarious. “But there’s one gray area,” Louis says pointedly…
Ray Romano is a great character, playing the unfortunate producer Rick with his hair in the style of “Once he got hit by a haymaker, since then his hair has left much to be desired.” Rica Amara has made her lover, and Miles and Luis are trying to explain to him exactly what happened to this terrible woman’s previous lovers. So Rick is also taking a big risk, and he still has to do the film…
Among Amara’s henchmen, Iago, performed by Goya Robles, looks very colorful. Amara’s favorite nephew, a douchebag who plays the tough boss but is only taken seriously because he has a stern aunt behind him. Iago constantly clashes with Miles: he feels that he does not respect him, so Miles needs to be on his guard – Iago will not calm down until he is removed.
Peter Stormare has a small, but rather funny role here: he plays the director who directs this damn movie.
I liked it: I watched with interest and swallowed the first season in one breath. However, with the second season, I somehow did not work out from the very beginning. Chris specifically turned piggy and began to use gangster methods much more often, Amara, who terrified everyone in Nevada, in Los Angeles began to look like some kind of petty gangster, on which cool authorities wipe their feet. This is Amara, against whom in the first season no one dared to utter a word.
As a result, I did not watch, I decided to keep the good impressions from the first season. There are many series with good first seasons, after which they quickly degrade. And here you just need to stop in time so as not to spoil the impression, which I usually do. And there is also a third season filmed, and perhaps they will continue.
Get Shorty serie meaning
Director: Davey Holmes Cast: Peter Stormare, Ray Romano, Chris O’Dowd, Carolyn Dodd, Goya Robles, Sean Bridgers, Isaac Keys, Lydia Porto, Lucy Walters, Megan Stevenson, Sarah Styles, Goya Robles
Series, USA, 2017, 60 min. 3 seasons of 10 episodes