Get Shorty recap

Miami loan shark Chili Palmer follows runaway debtor Leo Devoe to Las Vegas, where a casino sends him to collect from Hollywood producer Harry Zimm. Chili recognizes that Leo's insurance fraud is a strong movie premise and becomes involved with Harry and actress Karen Flores in developing it. Their project is complicated by Harry's debts, producer and drug dealer Bo Catlett's investment in another film, and Catlett's attempt to make others recover money from an airport locker under federal surveillance. Movie star Martin Weir becomes interested, while Catlett and Miami gangster Ray Bones both try to assert control. Chili uses the same calm pressure and insight that served him as a collector to manage the Hollywood players. Catlett dies after confronting him, and Chili lures Ray into taking the watched airport money, leading to Ray's arrest. Chili and his new partners are left making a movie based on the criminal story they have just survived.

Miami loan shark Chili Palmer is placed under Ray Bones Barboni after their longtime boss dies. Ray and Chili already dislike each other, making the new arrangement immediately unstable. Chili is assigned to collect from dry cleaner Leo Devoe, but Leo has supposedly died in a commercial-airliner crash. Chili notices signs that Leo's widow, Fay, knows more than she admits and concludes that Leo missed the flight, let the world believe he was dead, and kept the insurance payment. His pursuit of the false casualty leads away from Miami and toward Las Vegas, while Ray expects both the original debt and any money Chili can recover from the fraud.

Chili locates Leo in Las Vegas and takes back the insurance money, but his business at the casino produces another collection opportunity. Casino manager Dick Allen asks him to visit Harry Zimm, a Los Angeles producer who owes a large gambling debt. Chili finds Harry at the home of actress Karen Flores. Rather than merely demand payment, he tells Harry the story of Leo's staged death and escape. Harry immediately hears it as a movie idea, and Chili becomes interested in learning how such a story might be made. Karen, more perceptive than Harry about both men, sees that Chili is neither a conventional producer nor an ordinary hired thug.

Harry wants to move beyond his low-budget horror pictures and make a more respectable film, but his finances connect him to Bo Catlett. Catlett owns a limousine business, deals drugs, and has invested in one of Harry's projects. He expects his money and influence to be respected. Catlett is also dealing with the dangerous aftermath of a drug transaction and money left in an airport locker being watched by federal agents. He looks for someone else to take the risk of retrieving it. Chili learns that Harry's film ambitions, his gambling debt, and Catlett's investment cannot be treated as separate problems. Bear, Catlett's imposing enforcer and a working stuntman, enters the dispute but finds Chili much harder to intimidate than expected.

Chili and Karen begin shaping the Leo Devoe affair into a possible film while also helping Harry pursue movie star Martin Weir for his prestige project. Chili's directness works on actors and producers because he listens closely and rarely appears to be selling anything. Catlett, meanwhile, tries to recover control over Harry and to use Harry's financial desperation to solve the airport-locker problem. Chili recognizes the federal surveillance behind the proposed pickup and prevents Harry from walking into the trap. What began as a collection visit has become a contest over who gets to define Harry's obligations and which version of events will become the movie.

Martin Weir's interest gives the project real value, and Chili becomes increasingly central to it despite having no official Hollywood position. Catlett and his associate Ronnie Wingate continue to press their claim, but Bear's respect for Chili weakens Catlett's ability to use him as a simple threat. In Miami, Ray Bones learns that Chili recovered Leo's money and comes west to take it, adding a second violent claimant. Harry is attacked and injured as the various debts converge. Chili responds by arranging people and information as carefully as a producer arranges a picture: he keeps Karen and the project moving while letting Catlett and Ray pursue opportunities that expose their own weaknesses.

Catlett tries to resolve his conflict with Chili at Harry's house, but the confrontation ends with Catlett falling from the balcony and dying. Ray Bones remains intent on taking the money Chili recovered. Chili gives him access to the airport-locker cash connected to Catlett's drug business, knowing federal agents have the locker under surveillance; Ray retrieves it and is arrested. The threats around Harry's production are thereby removed without Chili surrendering control. Martin Weir remains attached, Bear joins the filmmaking circle, and Chili, Karen, and Harry develop a picture from the criminal events around them. Chili's methods have transferred cleanly from loan collection to producing: he understands what each person wants and gets them to advance his story. The group reaches the practical problem of inventing a satisfying ending for the movie based on their experience.

Chili survives the struggle for control of Harry's project by anticipating both Catlett's violence and Ray Bones's pursuit of Leo's money. Catlett's attempt to settle matters physically ends in his fatal fall from Harry's balcony. Chili then directs Ray toward the cash left in an airport locker, knowing federal agents are watching it; Ray takes the bait and is arrested. With the immediate criminal threats removed, Chili, Karen, Harry, and Bear turn the events into material for a film, and Martin Weir is attached as its star. Chili has effectively changed professions without changing the skills he uses: he reads people, identifies the story they want, and guides them toward his preferred outcome. The remaining difficulty is creative rather than criminal, as the group works out how their movie should end.