Get Shorty

Get Shorty (1995) is Barry Sonnenfeld's crime comedy, and you can watch online on iFILM. Adapted from Elmore Leonard's novel, it stars John Travolta as a loan shark who would rather talk movies than break legs.

Chili Palmer collects debts in Miami, but his real passion is film. A job chasing a runaway client lands him in Los Angeles, where he crosses paths with Harry Zimm, a producer of cheap horror flicks drowning in debt. Instead of squeezing Harry, Chili pitches himself as a producer, figuring his old life holds more usable plots than any screenwriter could invent. What follows is a tangle of dealmaking at gunpoint, a B-movie actress played by Rene Russo, and the slow realization that mobsters and Hollywood players run on the same rules. Travolta is backed by Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Dennis Farina and a young James Gandolfini.

Scott Frank's script turns Leonard's deadpan prose into scenes where a threat and a punchline share the same breath. Travolta won a Golden Globe for the part, cementing the comeback he started with Pulp Fiction. Stream Get Shorty (1995) online on iFILM.