Get Shorty (2017 - 2018)

4 1/2 stars - Get Shorty review by mc

Series 1 and Series 2 of Get Shorty (a third is on the way) maintain a plot-driven story arc which will grab you by both lapels and let you hang on, while at the same time being a troubling, patriarchally-skewed, validation of toxic masculinity. The acting is as good as I have seen anywhere and the whip-smart writing delivers a bone-dry sense of humour to make you chuckle and feel guilty both at the same time. On the one hand, Get Shorty the TV series takes Elmore Leonards short story and several average film adaptations as the starting point for a collision between the worlds of Hollywood film-making and, on the other hand, the small 'Leonardian' world of the organised crime 'family'. But behind the tension of these two different worlds is a subtly disturbing worldview glamourising crime itself as much as the glamour of the studio.

It takes a while to realise what it is that is so troubling in this top-notch, fast-moving thriller. I would put it like this: in this world guns work. they work to consign women entirely to only three possible roles: sex object, housewife or femme fatale . They work to empower men that use them, and to a lesser degree, men that know men that use them. The rest are left as non-players. By doing so, it shows beyond any argument that guns are the ultimate catnip for the cowardly and the stupid men amongst us. Get Shorty becomes the greatest argument for gun control it is possible to make. Like I said, troubling.