3000 MILES TO GRACELAND (2001) **1/2 Kevin Costner and Kurt Russell lead a gang of Elvises in robbing a Vegas casino during the International Elvis Convention! Talk about casting a broad philosophical net! It could mean anything!! Kurt has all the Elvis moves down from doing some previous flick, which grants the film that all-important internal Elvii credibility. Surely other Elvis impersonators weep upon learning of his skills. But it's Costner that is brilliant. Striding through the casino in perhaps the all-time greatest Elvis cape...black and gold, a garment so gaudy that even The King would have had no interest in wearing it! None of the comedic possibilities of Costner's character escape him, yet he is genuinely fearsome, the mutated end result of several lifetimes worth of work in criminal pathology, but still an individual possessed of courage and working within the confines of a code of honour so heterodox that its precepts are indiscernible to others. Demian Lichtenstein works his leads in a genuinely gruesome film that defies any reality other than the realities of representative technology. The viewer is so constantly reminded that the film is a film that it's almost impossible to be particularly concerned about any of the bad stuff. Lichtenstein works climactic moments like music videos, but in a manner that is effective. It makes you realize that MTV is the bastard hybrid offspring of a bad idea and capitalism, and that it is not the wedding of song and digitally represented activity that is to blame. It all leads up to a video game of a climax anyway, and one in which Ice-T arrives to pick up what must be several million points. And what would any video be without a love interest, a princess whom to save? Courteney Cox is so hopelessly absurdly out of her element (assuming that she has one) as the poignant and iconic embodiment of white trash that she lends extra credibility to every Elvis in the film. Even the black ones, and I was just thinking on that--I mean, there's a very strong argument to be made that Black Elvis is always more appropriate.
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