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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
decline of Mr. Leonard,
This review is from: Be Cool (Hardcover)
I work in Hollywood as a runner, have for years. None of the characters in this book even vaguely resemble anybody I work with. Least of all Chili Palmer. Nor is Mr. Leonards dialog as spot-on as it used to be. Ryan's Rules was one of the greatest books I ever read. I've read it four or five times. Be Cool is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It gets worse. The dialog is so-so the characters are unbeleivable, and the action isn't real. In Ryans Rules the guys were robbing liquor stores and it was totally real, in Be Cool the one and only scene that doesn't cause a groan is the opening scene at Swingers restaurant where Tommy Athens is talking about the movie he wants Chili to make and Chili asks what's the movie about and Tommy Athens goes: "Me", now that's Holywood. On the other hand, when the 6 foot 6 Samoan barges into the studio exec womans office and bashes her TV with a baseball bat, anybody who's ever been anywhere near a studio lot will hoot with astonishment. This scene makes a deafening clunk. And then, after behaving like that, apparently we're supposed to beleive the big Samoan just strolls off the lot, because without a pass he wouldn't've been parking on the lot in the first place, where in real life the man would be getting treated like a king, as in Rodney. All I can say is give it up Mr. Leonard. You couldn't possibly need the money, could you? And if you don't you're embarrassing yourself.
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Be Cool is lukewarm,
By Lee Greenway (Macon State College) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Be Cool (Hardcover)
As a fan of Elmore Leonard, and particularly of his popular novel, Get Shorty, I eagerly anticipated the release of this continuation of the tale of Chili Palmer. Dismayed was I to discover, therefore, that Be Cool was so true to the original that it could have, in fact, been the same book. Don't get me wrong, I like Chili Palmer as much as the next guy, but Mr. Leonard seemed to have missed the fact that for a sequel to be successful, it must take beloved characters and place them in NEW situations. This time, we find the same Chili doing the same things he did in Get Shorty, albeit with a little less violence, only this time he's doing it in the music world instead of the movie world. Throughout the novel, I found myself getting a more than vague sense of deja vu - I've seen it all before. The book is not, of course, without a few shining moments. A distressingly macabre exchange between a myopic Jewish hitman and a jive-talking, ghetto blasting music producer concerning the best type of baseball bat when a skull is the target provides a great moment of typical Leonard black humor. Leonard's signature stylistic devices - flashback narration and wonderful use of dialect - are omnipresent throughout. Be Cool does have its advantages, but it's possible to save money - just put on an Aerosmith album and re-read Get Shorty. Sorry, folks, but we've been here and done this.
9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Apt material for a high school english class!,
This review is from: Be Cool (Mass Market Paperback)
I was amused by a previous review stating that a high school student had read "Be Cool" as an English assignment. That's great if your teaching a novel with zero character development, zero story, hell, practically no plot. And I've enjoyed some of Leonard's other books. And the most embarassing part is Leonard's take on present day rock 'n roll. I can see him desperately picking the brains of people he thinks might be "hep" to the current scene. He breaks the first rule of writing; write what you know about. This book was a mess. Were the blurb folks paid off?
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