Pointlessly riding with a King's ransom

Review: '3000 Miles to Graceland' a violent, bloody trip to nowhere

In this story: Endless violence Dressing like Kings RELATED SITES

By Paul Clinton
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- Apparently Kevin Costner likes his caper flicks the way some people prefer their steaks: either bloody or well done -- and there is no in-between. "3,000 Miles to Graceland" falls firmly into the first category and never gets close to the second.

Early TV ads and trailers for this film led people to believe "Graceland" was a lighthearted flick about a bunch of slap-happy thieves who rob a Vegas casino while dressed-up to look like Elvis. Then the campaign changed and current ads make it look like a wacky, dark comedy road trip.

Both campaigns are misleading. This film actually boils down to two extremely violent and wildly gratuitous scenes -- one at the beginning of the movie, one at the end -- separated by a ridiculous, rambling script involving a trashy single mom named "Cybil with a C" (Courteney Cox) who's trying to dodge bullets between a psychotic killer, Murphy (Costner), and his ex-cellmate, Michael (Kurt Russell), while trying to get her hands on some of their stolen loot.

Endless violence

Co-writer and director Demian Lichtenstein slaps on the endless, extravagantly choreographed violence as if he's channeling Sam Peckinpah on speed. Even John Woo would think twice about this meaningless excess of gunfire and exploding bodies. It's a pointless exercise in finding out just how many gallons of stage blood can be used in a single scene.

The film begins with a motley crew of thieves all meeting up in the desert outside Las Vegas. Murphy and Michael are joined by Hanson (Christian Slater), Gus (David Arquette), and Franklin (Bokeem Woodbine), all bent on robbing the Riviera Hotel and Casino. It's International Elvis Week in this gambling paradise, and the place is crawling with weird guys sporting mutton chop sideburns, sequined jumpsuits and long, greasy hair.

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The boys, all carrying guitar cases containing automatic weapons, descend on the place in full regalia, accompanied by pounding music. The heist -- which looks highly professional one moment, then hopelessly amateurish the next -- goes terribly wrong as these idiots shoot their way out of the locked money room, across the casino's main floor, up an elevator, across the casino's roof and into a helicopter flown by football player-turned-actor Howie Long.

After this madcap orgy of human carnage, Murphy pulls the ultimate betrayal -- there is no honor among thieves -- and the film boils down to his efforts to catch Michael and Cybil (and her young son Jesse, played by David Kaye) as they race across the country with $3.2 million in stolen and marked bills. They're on their way to keep an appointment with a mealy-mouthed money launderer, played by a hapless Jon Lovitz.

Kevin Pollak and Thomas Haden Church (the airplane mechanic in the TV series "Wings") play two cartoonish federal marshals hot on the bad guys' trail. The lawmen, of course, conveniently find their targets in the final reel, in which another highly stylized, ultra-violent, senseless scene takes place, killing another couple of dozen people.

If you're not numb by this point, you haven't been watching closely enough. Lucky you.

Dressing like Kings

Slater, when dressed up like Elvis, looks like an embarrassed chipmunk suffering from mumps, with a dead cat perched on his head. Arquette looks like -- well, like Arquette, just hanging out. This man's personal wardrobe makes your average Elvis impersonator look as if he were dressed at Brooks Brothers. Woodbine looks no better, or worse, than any other black man dressed up like the King.

Costner, on the other hand, looks strangely comfortable in his Elvis drag, and Russell really looks right at home since one of his best roles was playing Presley in the 1979 TV movie "Elvis."

When she's not providing the audience with loving and lingering shots of her rear end, Cox is actually not too bad in the role of the opportunistic grifter who falls in love with the money, then the man, in this road trip from hell.

Reportedly, Russell lobbied for a less violent version of the film. But Costner, the director and the studio won out with their version after test audiences (no doubt full of teenage boys) reacted favorably to the blood-fest. Never mind. It wouldn't have helped. With or without the ridiculous body count, this mindless movie is D.O.A. in a theater near you.

"3000 Miles to Graceland" is rated R for violence and profanity.

'3000 Miles to Graceland'

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