This movie was hilarious…but in a different sense (obviously) from The Pacifier. It’s so familiar to those who enjoyed “Get Short” (especially if you see it right before you go to the movie) but it’s also a whole new medium for Chilli Palmer (John Travolta). See now instead of getting into the movie business, he’s getting into the music business…and has to deal with all the cutthroat deals going on (again a natural profession for a former shylock (loan shark)).

I really enjoyed Cedric the Entertainer as a record producer who hangs out with a bunch of “killah ganstas” but has a degree from Yale (or Harvard or someplace like that). It was especially great when he rails on a Russian Mafia boss for a good minute and a half because the boss called him a N-word. Of course the epitome of what Cedric rails against is Vince Vaughn as a white guy pretending to be black which was just hilarious to me because my sister is just like him (but obviously cooler, cuz this guy just does everything wrong when it comes to acting “thug”).

One problem I had was that Rene Russo was nowhere to be found in this film…not even in a reference! I mean if they go through all the work of including Danny DeVito in his old role as Martin Weir and a billboard for Harry Zimm’s (Gene Hackman) new movie Mr. Lovejoy (featuring Tom Hanks), why the heck didn’t they explain where Rene Russo’s character went? It seemed inconsistent to me that Chilli Palmer just got tired of her and the movie business so he just moves on to his “next big hit”. Of course this only detracted from the movie for about 3 seconds, so don’t worry about it.

Andre Benjamin (or as he prefers to be called Andre 3000 of Outkast) delivers a hilarious performance in the role of Dabu, the oddball cousin of Cedric who’s always doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, thereby inflicting damage upon his “gangsta street cred” like drinking tea or noisily slurping Mongolian food (“Dabu, could you please make your dining experience a little less ostentatious!”).

Uma Thurman turns in an alright performance as “the girl”, The Rock kills as Vince’s gay bodyguard who wants to act (“Scorchin!”), and lots of cameo’s. Aerosmith and Steven Tyler deliver the biggest cameo as they help launch the career of Christina Milian who plays the (very young as I see her…for crying out loud, I remember her days as a Movie Surfer on the Disney Channel…and she looks like she’s freaking 16, but somehow she’s 23 in real life) musical starlet that Chilli manages to success.

All in all a great flick that was really fun.