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3000 Miles to Graceland
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There are many little mistakes that can
ruin a picture. Sadly, 3000 Miles to Graceland is a victim
of most of them. Shoddy, epileptic-seizure-inducing camerawork, stereotypical
scripting, and a casting snafu here and there, makes this an action flick
that will appeal only to the people desperate to see an action movie.
True, there are hundreds of bullets fired, bodies stacking up all over,
and even an exploding gas station, though in a two hour movie, there just
isn't much in between. The story
involves Murphy (Kevin Costner), who along with just-out-of-jail buddies like
Michael (Kurt Russel), Gus (David Arquette), Hanson (Christian Slater),
and Franklin (Bokeem Woodbine), plans to
dress up like Elvis in Vegas and steal 3 million from a casino vault.
Yeah, I know; as if nobody since 1977 has thought of that one, a dozen
times already. The end result is implausibly successful, even if Franklin doesn't make it. Such is the first of many mistakes made by 3K/Graceland;
if you are going to be a so-called "Politically Correct Film,"
and add the 1970's cliché of a "token black character,"
why kill him off in the first 15 minutes of the film? The
bodies start piling up when a subplot not unlike The Getaway
has Murphy wanting to kill all the other members of the bank heist team, and be the
sole winner of the millions. As in Getaway, Michael is on to this plan way in
advance, and a bulletproof vest keeps him alive long enough to take the
money before his nefarious "partner" can get to it. The
remainder of the film is a cat and mouse game of sorts, between the two
remaining crooks and the cops hot on their tracks. Much
like in The Getaway, there's the obligatory girlfriend, Cybil Waingrow (Courtney Cox), who tags along with
Michael for no believable reason.
This character is so thin, you get the feeling she probably only agreed to
join Michael because there are re-runs on TV
that week. To make matters even less plausible, she takes such a liking to
the ex-con that she leaves her own young son with him, as she runs off with the
money (for reasons that are never made too terribly clear). Obviously, Murphy catches up with
them, leading to the obligatory semi-final showdown, and the far louder
big-showdown finale. There are some
amusing action sequences here, even if they are inundated with lackluster dialog
and scriptwriting, and perhaps a fair share of bad casting. This goes
triple for Courtney Cox, whose "Look at me, I'm from a
popular TV sitcom" attitude leads to a potentially R-rated vamp-role being watered down
to G-rated, banal, TV-movie standards. Get ready for about a dozen scenes that
could have been done far better by a grittier actress; at least they would
not have us believe that an ex-con girlfriend would be demure enough to
wear her wonder bra before, during, and even after the obligatory
bedroom scene. She performs a crying scene admirably, yet she's crying
when her young boy is with ex-con Murphy; this when she gladly left the
boy with ex-con Michael, for most of the whole picture. Most importantly, guys; if you're going to have a
body double shown whenever zooming into Cox's alleged shapely legs and
nude derriere, could you choose a body double whose all-over tan doesn't
so obviously look different from Cox's own pale-white skin? The
end result is a picture not unlike most action films these days; too much
of the budget is put into exploding gas stations and fake bullet FX,
without any money left for the script. This isn't to say that every action
film has to be Shakespearean, however. There are many instances of action
films with little plot, yet enough quality in its suspense and action
sequences to make you forget all that. Sadly, 3000 Miles to
Graceland is not such a film. The
DVD : Not much to report; movie
trailer, widescreen version of the film, and that's it. That's all that's
planned, and I doubt there'll be a "special edition" to change
this anytime soon. As with the movie, this is somewhat of a
disappointment.
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