3000 Miles to Graceland

In the beginning of "3000 Miles to Graceland," five Elvis impersonators hold up a Las Vegas casino. This is wonderful. Nothing in the world can possibly detract from the sheer kick-ass poetry of five amoral men in rhinestoned vinyl and paste-on sideburns using an awesome variety of firearms and a torrent of ammo to perforate wave after wave of ineffectual security and some of the tackiest scenery any civilization could create.

Unfortunately, no matter how much slow-motion you use in such a scene (and a lot of slow motion is used here), it eventually has to end. This means writer/director Demian Lichtenstein and his cowriter Richard Recco had to make up something for the rest of the film. They settled on a classic manly plot: divvying up the swag. They got Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner, two men who really know how to snarl and devalue human life, to play the two main combatants. And they made sure that, regardless of the demands of dramatic coherence or necessity, not too much time passes in "3000 Miles to Graceland" without someone firing a gun.

Lichtenstein and Recco are not able to carry through without a few snags in the plot, and they hardly succeed at erasing memories of the glory of the first fifteen minutes of the film. But what they do give us makes "3000 Miles to Graceland" a solid action film and a useful antidote to the run of alarmingly explosionless films we've had recently.

This film actually kicks off with a fight between computer-animated scorpions before it gets to the good stuff. For the action film conoisseurs among you, this may seem an omen of that unfortunate species of action film, the techno-actioner, whose makers often labor under the unfortunate delusion that special effects and thumping bass soundtracks can compensate for a lack of directorial skill, logical coherence and acting ability.

Lichtenstein, however, has absorbed the cool parts of techno-action directing (special effects, thumping bass soundtracks) and discarded all the rest. He avoids overemphasizing when overemphasis would be both useless and hilarious, as so many of his action-directing brethern have done recently. When he does use effects, they seem to flow natually from the action, and are ten times cooler for it. His gunfights are well-staged, his car chases provide visceral thrills, his efforts to incite terror and excitement pretty much always do the job. Lichtenstein seems on the cusp of developing a unique personal style, and it will be interesting to see whether he can do it over the next few years. (He's already the finest director named after an insignificant European country.)

Lichtenstein also gives his actors plenty of space to do their thing. Russell gets top billing over Costner here, and with good reason; his charm and cool have worn well over the years. His craggy face can go from enraged to unwillingly concerned in a second and come out of the emotional turmoil none the worse for wear. Costner turns in good work too; his rages seem more affected than Russell's, but then, he has many, many more of them, because he plays the guy who wants to rob the casino and kill everyone, as opposed to Russell, who just wants to rob the casino. David Arquette and Christian Slater are in the film also, but they aren't in it for long, so it's okay.

If the film were just Russell and Costner, it would be quite enjoyable. Thus, one wonders exactly why Courtney Cox is in the film. She's far from ingratiating, and her character basically exists to make Russell act emotional, which is not a good reason to exist in an action film. The additional subplot with her character's child is even more useless, with blatant pandering to his anti-cuteness (unless you think kids stealing, smoking and cursing are cute).

"3000 Miles to Graceland" also commits the unpardonable sin of being tedious at some points; there is simply too much time between the gigantic opening bloodbath and the gigantic closing bloodbath. Again, this could have been cured by cutting Cox. And finally, someone needs to declare a moratorium on action films in which the first man to die is the token black guy. The fact that Ice-T provides a welcome injection of firepower in the final scene does not excuse the initial killing.

Still, not even the awesome anti-fun power of Courtney Cox can stop Lichtenstein from throwing in random shootouts, and the super-long but never-boring final scene does much to redeem the occasional laxness that preceded it. Parts of the script are even well-constructed: for example, the scorpion comes back in interesting ways, and there's a little subplot about Elvis' illegitimate children which is handled with commendable subtlety. (Hint: watch closely on the boat.)

Lichtenstein's virtues as a director do much to overcome his faults as a scriptwriter, meaning that while "3000 Miles to Graceland" is far from the King of action films, it shouldn't be turned away from the court without a look.

ARISTOTLE LOVES "U-571"

Did you know that if you don't love action films, you're not actually human? Really! Nobody thought more about what was human and what wasn't than ancient Greek philosophers. And Aristotle, one of the "big dogs" in the pack of ancient Greeks, made the following statement in his Rhetoric (Bk. 1, Ch. 11), which I think sums up pretty well why I enjoy most of the action films I enjoy:

"Dramatic turns of fortune and hairbreadth escapes from peril are pleasant, because we feel all such things are wonderful."

 

Word, A. Thanks for Professor Jeanne Fahnestock for making me read the Rhetoric, although I think I'm supposed to be getting something else from it.

A PLEA FOR DISCARDING STEREOTYPES OF ALL KINDS, WITH COROLLARY EVIDENCE

I am somewhat abashed to admit it, but until last night I thought that only the following kinds of people made stupid comments all the way through movies:

• black people under 35
• white women over 35
• me

Of course, not all, or even most, of these people make stupid comments during films, but I had conceived of the subset of people who do make stupid comments during films as being limited to these groups (especially the third one).

Last night, however, a seemingly mild-mannered Asian-American woman sat down next to me and proceeded to make insanely stupid comments throughout the entire film. It was eye-opening, particularly when during the opening Elvises scene she asked her boyfriend, "What's that gun for?" (Never question the presence of a gun in a film like this. It will be used.) Her frequent comments during the Kurt Russell-Courteney Cox romance almost made the onscreen dialogue bearable as well ("Ewww!", "What is he doing?").

I realized, after the film was over, that my previous conception of human behavior had been too limited. Any person of any race, creed, geographic origin, class, or anything else may well be an inconsiderate seatmate at the cinema. Don't let stereotypes stop you from realizing that. There's some kind of opposite corollary about everyone possibly being nice here too, but I leave that as an exercise to the reader. (I love my econ textbooks.)

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