I Read Books: Get Shorty

 

Get Shorty

Chili Palmer is a loan shark in Florida; when his boss dies Ray “Bones” Barboni becomes his new boss. Unfortunately they’ve been at odds since Bones borrowed Chili’s jacket without asking and Chili violently got it back. Bones notes that there’s $10,000 outstanding on a dry cleaner, Leo Devoe's account. Chili points out that it’s because Devoe is dead, but Bones insists he get the money back, maybe from the widow, assuming she got a life insurance payout.

This propels Chili on a complicated course, as it turns out that Leo is not dead, but the airline thought he was due to his baggage being aboard. He’s left his wife and gone to Las Vegas with the payout from the airline; obviously the widow gives him up to Chili, the first one to come calling, as he’s abandoned her. Chili heads for Vegas, gets the money he needs, promptly gambles it away.

A friend in a casino gives him a collection job for Los Angeles, where Leo has gone. Chili tracks down small- maybe medium-time producer Harry Zimm who owes the casino money, finds him at his ex-wife’s house. There Chili tells him the story so far, pitching it as a film. Harry tells him that he has a great script, and a star that’s interested, but getting them together is a problem. Worse, Zimm’s films are being backed by drug dealing moneymen who launder the proceeds through his work, and they’ve paid for a new low-budget horror flick Zimm doesn’t want to make because there’s this better (bigger) deal.

Chili finds himself in the movie producing business, which isn’t quite like the loan shark business. But on the other hand maybe it is, Chili always told people, if they don’t think they can pay up, then they shouldn’t take the loan, and this saved him a lot of trouble, he hardly ever had to threaten or hurt anyone. Not so in the movies business.

Read This: Fun, pacy, entertaining crime story
Don’t Read This: The story is chopped up, and no one is actually very nice