Oct 27, 2001 08:43 PM
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Casino heists, beautiful women and bloody violence galore. Didn't we see this a year ago in the Ben Affleck movie ''Reindeer Games''?
Well yes the plot is similar in a few regards. However, 3000 Miles To Graceland, while nothing exceptional, is more entertaining than Reindeer Games.
The movie opens with ex-con Michael (Kurt Russell) traveling through a small Nevada town not far from Vegas. While passing through he stops briefly to refuel and encounters a single struggling woman named Cybil (Courtney Cox) and her pickpocket son Jesse.
After a brief fling with Cybil, Michael continues on his way. In Vegas he meets up with prison buddy Murphy (Kevin Costner) who has put together a motley assortment of thugs.
The band of thugs is similar in some ways to the Reservoir Dogs. As they drive into Vegas, two of them get into a debate on who was better, Elvis or Frank Sinatra, until Murphy shushes them and informs them that they better not be putting down the king.
In Vegas, the men plan to rob the Riviera casino disguised as Elvis. The robbery sequence is an extended one and features a high amount of bloody violence. After the robbery takes place, the battered group of men escapes from the casino. Then a series of plot twists take place that lead to Michael being in a position where he has to get back the money, save Cybil and Jesse (Whom he becomes fond of after a while) and escape before he winds up singing Jailhouse rock.
The movie lets you know fairly quickly who the good guys and bad guys are. Michael is apparently not a bad guy because he doesn't kill any innocent bystanders. Murphy is apparently an evil psychopath (he takes a sadistic glee in mowing people down and threatens young children) with an Elvis obsession (he thinks he is somehow related to the King). Cybil is the woman who, after her brief fling, will become (for a short while) a thorn in Michael's side, then turn around and become the woman whom he really loves.
Russell is overall pretty good as the antihero of the story. His character here is a somewhat kinder gentler Snake Plisken (his character from Escape From New York). Costner breaks from tradition to play a really slimy villain. His character is similar in some ways to the deranged Michael Madsen character in the aforementioned Reservoir Dogs. And Courtney Cox is good as Cybil.
The film itself is very violent. The casino sequence features a very high amount of carnage and there is another violent shootout set to Elvis's rendition of ''My Way''.
3000 Miles To Graceland is good as it is, an example of fast food filmmaking, not particularly nourishing. But you can't help chowing down. Reservoir Dogs it's not. But it's a hunk, a hunk of burning action and comedy.
