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These scenes seem suspiciously calculated to distract us from the film's lack of a compelling storyline, the way Anger Management collapsed into a major league baseball game. They also feel like ideas produced by "a committee," one of the Hollywood dynamics criticized in the film.

Vince Vaughn is irresistably funny in his role as a sleazy manager

• Why couldn't they develop Linda Moon, whose career plight is the crux of the matter, into a character we care about? And if she's supposed to be a rare and extraordinary talent, why not find some songs she can perform that prove it?

Therein lies Be Cool's most serious flaw. The characters knowingly wink at Hollywood and Top 40 superficiality. And there are plenty of smirking references to this movie's status as a "product" of the machine. (Chili spends one scene despising unnecessary, mediocre sequels. Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, comfortably playing himself, announces, "I'm not one of those singers who appears in movies." Unapologetic product placement is everywhere.)

But when we're supposed to believe that Chili has found an alternative to artificiality—something "pure" and "genuine"—this exemplar of integrity starts dancing and singing like just another industry product. Pop star Christina Milian certainly knows how to strut her stuff, but if these performances are representative of her work, in a few years we won't be able to tell her apart from the other Janet Jackson/J-Lo clones who line up for American Idol (which the film deftly skewers).

Some will argue that Be Cool doesn't deserve much serious analysis. And they're right. It doesn't deserve much attention at all. Gray and Company are uninterested in anything more than mild-mannered entertainment. As far as that goes, it has its memorable moments. The end-credits montage, which gives each cast member a chance to bust-a-move, is as much fun … and substantial … as anything that precedes it. And a few of the supporting actors score points along the way.

Cedric the Entertainer seizes the film's potential for inspired lunacy. His character—Sin, a successful hip-hop producer who hides his Wharton education in order to keep his "street cred"—is followed around by a group of muscle-bound gunslingers called the Dub-MDs. Whenever they arrive in their parade of glitzy black Hummers, the film's heart gets a jump start.

We get another jolt from Vince Vaughn, who is, perhaps for the very first time, irresistibly funny. As Raji, an ants-in-his-pants music-biz manager and the greatest poser of them all, he goes over-the-top with "gangsta" talk and hyperactive body language. When he learns that he can't get away with gay-bashing around his enormous, unmistakably homosexual bodyguard (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in a surprisingly amusing, self-effacing turn), he has to dodge the disgruntled giant's Herculean punches even as he smooth-talks him out of the tantrum. His frenetic rhyming manages to save his skin more than once: "Stop hatin'—start participatin'!" Vaughn seems to be working twice as hard as anyone else in the picture.

Cedric the Entertainer, playing a hip-hop producer, gives the film a rare jump start

But these characters are much more exaggerated than those in Get Shorty. Their behavior is so outrageous that the dramatic turns of the plot—especially those scenes in which characters kill each other—seem jarringly dissonant.

The Pulp Fiction references only emphasize Be Cool's inferiority. Tarantino's characters made you fear them even as they bewildered you, made you laugh, and made you care. Every scene was saturated with searingly memorable style and dialogue that snap-crackle-popped. It boasted career-peak performances by most of its actors. Contrarily, there's nothing distinctive about Be Cool's style. Its comedy engine idles, revving only occasionally. Screenwriter Steinfeld's dialogue strikes few sparks. And some cast members are surprisingly disappointing, perhaps miscast. Thurman's Edie, Keitel's Nick, and James Woods' Tommy are lousy replacements for the memorable fools of Shorty played by Rene Russo, Gene Hackman, and James Gandolfini. Keitel and Woods, usually reliable, look like they got the call and did their scenes the same day, without a moment's preparation.

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