Director: Demian Lichtenstein
Starring: Kevin Costner,Kurt Russell,Christian Slater,Courteney Cox,Howie Long,Jon Lovitz,Ice-T,David Arquette
Who says there's no originality in Hollywood anymore? Well, that's what flashed through my mind, anyway, when I first saw the trailer for 3000 Miles to Graceland, which, with its gun-toting Elvis bank robbers and rollicking use of the ZZ Top classic “Viva Las Vegas,” looked to be a gleefully over-the-top meld of Reservoir Dogs and Honeymoon in Vegas. All I have to say is, if you can't see the potential guilty pleasure in watching a sequin-clad Kevin Costner roam around a casino with a guitar case full of firearms, then your sense of fun must be very sorry indeed.
3000 Miles to Graceland begins by introducing us to Michael (Kurt Russell) and Murphy (Costner), a pair of leathery ex-cons who, along with their ragtag gang (Christian Slater, David Arquette and Bokeem Woodbine, who, as the obligatory black character, is certain to bite the dust first), plan to stage a casino heist while dressed as Elvis impersonators. When later asked why he would rob a casino, Michael replies, “Because everyone else robs banks.” Well yes, but then banks don't have wall-to-wall security and surveillance devices and they aren't owned by, oh, THE MOB! But I digress. At any rate, the first half-hour of the film is fueled by exactly the kind of pulpy flair I was hoping for. The opening credits explode with an animated scorpion duel (which prompted me to lean over to my brother and ask, “Are we in the right theater?”), and from there, director Demian Lichtenstein infuses his setup and casino caper with a wild kinetic energy. A music video veteran, Lichtenstein is one of those filmmakers who's never met a scene he couldn't over-direct the hell out of and who seems to regard any shot that lasts more than 3/8 of a second as downright criminal.
However, once he shifts away from the casino, Lichtenstein slows down and, unfortunately, so does his movie. The cheeky Elvis gimmick is pretty much discarded and what we're left with is a largely mundane action-thriller that runs through the clichés faster than a rainbow trout in a Colorado stream. Suffice to say, once you realize that the story is now focused on how Russell's good-bad guy is double-crossed by Costner's bad-bad guy, the excitement level drops precipitously. While I'll never get tired of that timeless “character-blows-up-gas-station-by-flicking-cigarette-out-car-window” sequence, other members of the cinematic cliché Hall of Fame are less forgivable. I'm thinking of the presence of an annoyingly precocious kid, a pair of wise-cracking US Marshals inserted for comic relief, shots of scorpions in the desert, David Arquette acting like a complete jackass, etc, etc… If there's a gem to be found here, it's in the performance of Kevin Costner (don't laugh… you're laughing… stop laughing!), who tends to shine in his least narcissistic roles (as in anything that's anti-Postman). Costner is surprisingly appealing as a sociopath, and his scenes, at any rate, carry more charge than the ponderous romance that develops between Russell and Courteney Cox's single mom. If I have one final complaint, it's that “Viva Las Vegas” does NOT play over the end credits, although I suppose it hardly matters because by the time they roll, 3000 Miles to Graceland has long since run out of gas.
