May 06, 2001 05:07 AM
3153 Views
Noisy, boring, bloody and brainless. 3000 Miles to Graceland opens with cheap computer animation featuring dueling metallic scorpions, closes with a shootout scene straight out of a Miami Vice warehouse bust, and is never better than painfully tedious in between. It is so shoddy that it should be an embarrassment not only to everyone involved, but also to their families, friends, casual acquaintances, and anyone whoever served them a coffee. Many a guidance counselor will leave this movie thinking to him or herself, ''I told him he'd never be good for anything,'' and I would be tempted to agree.
More like 3000 Miles from a Career, it the cinematic equivalent of a criminal record, a stain on the collective resume of the entire cast whose only purpose is to serve as a reminder to future filmakers and film goers why so many has-beens and never-weres should remain that way.
I can not recall ever seeing so many dead end actors in one movie. There is Christian Slater, who is still short, Howie Long, who is still tall, David Arquette, who is still loud, and Iced T, who is still named after a picnic beverage. Then there is Kevin Pollak, whose career highlight was a supporting character in Grumpy Old Men, and Thomas Haden Church, known to the world as the mechanic from the tv show Wings. In this company, Jon Lovitz is like a superstar of the unemployed, and Courtney Cox is success incarnate, even if it is an anorexic, big eared success incarnate. It is certainly a highlight of the movie that nearly everyone of these actors is shot at least once, sometimes twice, and occasionally in the face.
The leaders of this gang of inexpensive talent are Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell, two former Wyatt Earps with quickly fading careers. The pairing is supposed to seem daring, but only seems desperate, as do their showy and empty performances.
Before I saw 3000 Miles to Graceland, I would have thought it impossible to make a movie about a gang of Elvis impersonators who rob a Las Vegas casino during an Elvis convention that wasn't at least a bit entertaining. The premise doesn't promise class, but begs you to jump aboard for a gleefully exhilarating ride, as does the movie's electrifying trailer.
The trailer, however, leaves out the seemingly important fact that all the Elvis hoopla stops about 15 minutes into the two hour movie! The robbery, which is essentially opens the movie, is the beginning and the end of the Elvis segment, and though it features a smattering of Elvis songs being belted out by trashy impersonators, most of the music is third rate.
The heist goes awfully and predictably awry, and as graceless and clumsy a shootout as I've ever seen ensues, featuring dozens of security guards, cops, and innocent bystanders getting mowed down for our enjoyment. This is one of those movies where cops stand in the middle of a crowded room and open fire on a guy with a machine gun, waiting to get drilled in the chest.
You half expect them to fall on top of each other, in one big pile. The director makes things worse by trying to get all Woo up in there, swinging cameras wildly and using lots of slow motion shots. But he is more like a three year old with crayons-all over the place!
After the theft sequence, the movie turns into a two man fight for cash between gang leaders Costner and Russell, and the Elvisness becomes as bare as the hair on Costner's head save for nasty fat Elvis sideburns and big sunglasses.
In place of Elvisness is lots of the smart talking and double crossing that has become standard fare in every straight to video crime movie since Reservoir Dogs.
Thus instead of an Elvis heist movie, you have a battle of the old 'n' wrinkly excons. To add insult to injury, 3000 Miles to Graceland also features a tear-jerker romance/father figure subplot that is crudely sentimental.
Like all women in every movie geared to the lowest of macho escapism, Courtney Cox plays a greedy little sleaze in skimpy clothes, prone to fits of aggressive sex and incredible emotional weakness, and thus the perfect girl for Kurt Russell. She is also a single mother, and her son is in need of a daddy. Scenes of father-son grand theft auto and father-son jail break ensue. I don't know how I kept from crying when the music swelled, the boy started crying and he desperately hugged his new daddy.
This movie is just two hours too long! Elvis left the building and so did many of the patrons.
