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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Meet Chili Palmer, a Miami based loan-shark, who is trying to track down a dead-beat
debtor (who incidently has just fleeced an airline out of $300,000 with a fake death legal suit).
Chili tracks his dead-beat out West, and along the way runs into another dead-beat film producer,
Harry Zimm, who is also behind on his payments. As Chili goes about collecting his debts, he gets
the film producing and writing bug via Harry, with a resulting madcap plot that ensues thanks to
villians like the dapper Bo Catlett and his muscle Bear, and Ray Bones.
I found the start a bit slow; too much exposition in Leonard's prose, but after about the third chapter classic Leonard story-telling via witty dialogue. And a great closing line: "Fuckin endings, man, they weren't as easy as they looked."
debtor (who incidently has just fleeced an airline out of $300,000 with a fake death legal suit).
Chili tracks his dead-beat out West, and along the way runs into another dead-beat film producer,
Harry Zimm, who is also behind on his payments. As Chili goes about collecting his debts, he gets
the film producing and writing bug via Harry, with a resulting madcap plot that ensues thanks to
villians like the dapper Bo Catlett and his muscle Bear, and Ray Bones.
I found the start a bit slow; too much exposition in Leonard's prose, but after about the third chapter classic Leonard story-telling via witty dialogue. And a great closing line: "Fuckin endings, man, they weren't as easy as they looked."
What happens when a mob guy gets tired of working for the mob and discovers the movie business may not be too hard to get into? Find out in Get Shorty.
It's a good book with some realized characters I cared about. Believable and relatable. It moves forward pretty easily.
It's a good book with some realized characters I cared about. Believable and relatable. It moves forward pretty easily.
8/5 - I had real trouble getting into the plot and unusual dialogue style and ended up giving up at page 95. I'm not sure if it was the book or my preoccupation with my recovery, so one day (hopefully this year) I'll give it another go.
I read this not long after it first came out, and enjoyed it greatly. I did always like Leonard's snappy dialogue-driven stories, and this one has a particularly light touch. There was one scene near the end that just about had me rolling on the floor with laughter. A good part of the humor and cleverness of the story comes from the way that the characters get drawn into Hollywood thinking, even if at the start they didn't intend to; they get increasingly unsure whether they're playing a part, and start acting as if they're in a movie. And it's a story that's constantly retelling itself. Can you sort out life and script, when the people themselves can't?
It's been years since I saw the film version of Get Shorty, so I came to this one more or less clean. And, as with Elmore Leonard's other books, this one doesn't disappoint. In some ways, it's review-proof. You have all the usual Leonard stuff: wiseguys and smart ladies, whip-smart dialogue, lapses of morality and struggles for redemption, cons, shylocks, dupes, and broads. It's all here, only this time it's set against the backdrop of the Hollywood studio system, which is easily as amoral as the New Jersey and Miami mob scenes that birthed protagonist Chili Palmer. The fun is in watching how Leonard takes these tropes, winds them up, and sets them loose.
If you wanna read some damn good dialog, read Elmore fuckin' Leonard. 'nuff said.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character