The King is dead. He has to be. If he were alive, he would have come out of hiding to file a liable suit.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
This film is a simple bloody heist/revenge picture with the gimmick of having the characters dress like Elvis. That's all. Except it is a lot meaner, bloodier, and less stylish than the local Elvis impersonator. The best person possible to review this movie would have been Presley; I'm sure he would have described it as mean-spirited, vicious, amoral and insulting to audiences, and an offense to his music, which was about love, feelings and tenderness; the opposite of what this movie is about.
The movie begins with a gory robbery at a casino by thugs dressed as Elvis while there is a live "Elvis" stage show going on. Lots of patrons are killed purposely during the robbery. Minutes later, we are supposed to like these sociopathic Elvis impersonators. Russell and Costner are among the killers, who soon turn out to be mortal enemies, both after the loot from the heist.
The only remotely interesting character in the movie is Lovitt, who plays a money launderer who is holding the loot. Eventually, Costner decides he wants it all for himself and catches up with him.
After terrorizing Lovitt into opening the safe, Costner hangs around for no apparent reason for one of Lovitt's workers to show up, a young girl who doesn't have a clue as to what is happening. Costner kills Lovitt and the girl (who he has never seen before) with hunting arrows, for absolutely no reason. They are discovered dumped in the back bathroom in a pool of blood. Again, we are supposed to find Costner charming after this. Costner simply doesn't play a convincing bad guy. He does succeed at being repugnant, but what he doesn't seem to understand is that what he is succeeding at is being repugnant himself in trying to play a "bad" character.
After kidnapping Russell's girlfriend's son, Russell finally gets a brainwave and contacts the police, who send in the entire state militia to the warehouse the hostage transfer is to take place in.
Russell double-crosses Costner (and endangers his girlfriend's son's life in the process) with newspaper clippings instead of money, and Costner shoots Russell with a gun the size of an anti-aircraft weapon. Russell falls two or three floors to the ground inside the building.
At the end of the film, Costner decides to go down in a blaze of glory by shooting dozens (literally dozens) of regular army commandos (!), their kevlar armor nothing compared to his suit of "star protection", which shows that if you're the star, you can't be shot until the end of the film. The army commandos in this scene are worse shots than the Storm Troopers on Star Wars; with dozens of them blazing away with machine guns, they can't hit a single guy standing out in the open. It's a good thing Iraq or Afghanistan didn't have this guy on their side; we never would have stood a chance. Oh, and he has help from Ice T playing a badass black mercenary (who acts like he is a leftover from 1960's blacksploitation pictures), who has a charming moment sliding across the ceiling on a rope (upside down, no less), spinning like an upside-down ballerina while killing endless army commandos. The movie has lost any semblance of coherency at this point, so why not? Russell's apparently dead body is put onto an ambulance.
Finally, with the end credits getting ready to roll, Costner gets shot in the leg, and kills lots more commandos; seeing what he has become in a mirror, he then "allows" himself to be riddled by the commandos' bullets.
But wait, Russell is alive! He cleverly was wearing a kevlar vest, the only one working in this film. And guess who is driving the ambulance? His girlfriend! The ambulance driver and paramedics had apparently gone out for a smoke during the carnage, leaving the vehicle unattended (which never happens under any circumstances in real life). The driver comes back and asks casually, "where's my ambulance?", which sums up the intelligence of the entire picture.
At the end of the film, Russell, his girlfriend and son are on a newly-bought boat out on a day cruise, proving that crime pays, and pays big. The End. But not quite:
While the credits are rolling, the editor's give the viewers something to look at, a disturbed MTV-like video playing on the left side of the screen, with Russell doing an Elvis imitation intercut with Costner playing with two guns, trying to decide which one to use, and finally pointing one at the audience. Costner is trying to look stylish and cute, but considering the dozens of people his character has murdered, it looks as warm and cuddly as if Son of Sam had been paroled and was doing an Elvis impersonation, aiming his gun at the audience. Strangely enough, this five minute video is a condensation of the entire plot of the movie, and exactly as coherent.
Looking back it at, this video could have been done at the request of the film crew, to distract the audience from looking at the titles and seeing their name connected to this film.
If I had spent $9 for this movie at the theater, I probably would have been moved to acts of barbarity like those I witnessed in the film. If you don't believe a movie with Russell and Costner can be this bad, go check it out at Blockbuster. I dare you. Don't say you weren't warned. If they make a sequel called "3000 Miles to Burning the Original Print of Graceland", they would guarantee the blockbuster of the year.
In honor of the sum of the collective I.Q.s of the director, writer and producer, I am giving this three stars.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
This film is a simple bloody heist/revenge picture with the gimmick of having the characters dress like Elvis. That's all. Except it is a lot meaner, bloodier, and less stylish than the local Elvis impersonator. The best person possible to review this movie would have been Presley; I'm sure he would have described it as mean-spirited, vicious, amoral and insulting to audiences, and an offense to his music, which was about love, feelings and tenderness; the opposite of what this movie is about.
The movie begins with a gory robbery at a casino by thugs dressed as Elvis while there is a live "Elvis" stage show going on. Lots of patrons are killed purposely during the robbery. Minutes later, we are supposed to like these sociopathic Elvis impersonators. Russell and Costner are among the killers, who soon turn out to be mortal enemies, both after the loot from the heist.
The only remotely interesting character in the movie is Lovitt, who plays a money launderer who is holding the loot. Eventually, Costner decides he wants it all for himself and catches up with him.
After terrorizing Lovitt into opening the safe, Costner hangs around for no apparent reason for one of Lovitt's workers to show up, a young girl who doesn't have a clue as to what is happening. Costner kills Lovitt and the girl (who he has never seen before) with hunting arrows, for absolutely no reason. They are discovered dumped in the back bathroom in a pool of blood. Again, we are supposed to find Costner charming after this. Costner simply doesn't play a convincing bad guy. He does succeed at being repugnant, but what he doesn't seem to understand is that what he is succeeding at is being repugnant himself in trying to play a "bad" character.
After kidnapping Russell's girlfriend's son, Russell finally gets a brainwave and contacts the police, who send in the entire state militia to the warehouse the hostage transfer is to take place in.
Russell double-crosses Costner (and endangers his girlfriend's son's life in the process) with newspaper clippings instead of money, and Costner shoots Russell with a gun the size of an anti-aircraft weapon. Russell falls two or three floors to the ground inside the building.
At the end of the film, Costner decides to go down in a blaze of glory by shooting dozens (literally dozens) of regular army commandos (!), their kevlar armor nothing compared to his suit of "star protection", which shows that if you're the star, you can't be shot until the end of the film. The army commandos in this scene are worse shots than the Storm Troopers on Star Wars; with dozens of them blazing away with machine guns, they can't hit a single guy standing out in the open. It's a good thing Iraq or Afghanistan didn't have this guy on their side; we never would have stood a chance. Oh, and he has help from Ice T playing a badass black mercenary (who acts like he is a leftover from 1960's blacksploitation pictures), who has a charming moment sliding across the ceiling on a rope (upside down, no less), spinning like an upside-down ballerina while killing endless army commandos. The movie has lost any semblance of coherency at this point, so why not? Russell's apparently dead body is put onto an ambulance.
Finally, with the end credits getting ready to roll, Costner gets shot in the leg, and kills lots more commandos; seeing what he has become in a mirror, he then "allows" himself to be riddled by the commandos' bullets.
But wait, Russell is alive! He cleverly was wearing a kevlar vest, the only one working in this film. And guess who is driving the ambulance? His girlfriend! The ambulance driver and paramedics had apparently gone out for a smoke during the carnage, leaving the vehicle unattended (which never happens under any circumstances in real life). The driver comes back and asks casually, "where's my ambulance?", which sums up the intelligence of the entire picture.
At the end of the film, Russell, his girlfriend and son are on a newly-bought boat out on a day cruise, proving that crime pays, and pays big. The End. But not quite:
While the credits are rolling, the editor's give the viewers something to look at, a disturbed MTV-like video playing on the left side of the screen, with Russell doing an Elvis imitation intercut with Costner playing with two guns, trying to decide which one to use, and finally pointing one at the audience. Costner is trying to look stylish and cute, but considering the dozens of people his character has murdered, it looks as warm and cuddly as if Son of Sam had been paroled and was doing an Elvis impersonation, aiming his gun at the audience. Strangely enough, this five minute video is a condensation of the entire plot of the movie, and exactly as coherent.
Looking back it at, this video could have been done at the request of the film crew, to distract the audience from looking at the titles and seeing their name connected to this film.
If I had spent $9 for this movie at the theater, I probably would have been moved to acts of barbarity like those I witnessed in the film. If you don't believe a movie with Russell and Costner can be this bad, go check it out at Blockbuster. I dare you. Don't say you weren't warned. If they make a sequel called "3000 Miles to Burning the Original Print of Graceland", they would guarantee the blockbuster of the year.
In honor of the sum of the collective I.Q.s of the director, writer and producer, I am giving this three stars.