Campy Costner the only thing that saves brainless Elvis thriller
Grade: B-
Kevin Costner is just like tofu or the Pride of Arizona Marching Band - you either love him or hate him.
If you're in the first group, you admire Costner for his craggy good looks and the principled loners he portrayed in films like "Bull Durham" or "Dances with Wolves."
If you're in the latter group, he's a preening nitwit with an inflamed ego whose inability to pass up the slightest opportunity for self-aggrandizement transformed trash like "Waterworld" or "The Postman" into unintentional high camp. There's little middle ground between the fans and the haters, and Costner's tendency to split his talents between "serious" roles and escapist crap only aggravates the split.
Arriving hot on the tail of the "serious" "Thirteen Days," "3000 Miles to Graceland" falls squarely in the escapist category. This Tarantino-esque tale of a gang of Elvis-impersonating burglars is a ridiculous, frenetic romp, rife with gunplay, unnecessary film-school camera tricks and painfully derivative "hip" dialogue. Kurt Russell gets top billing, but besides an incomprehensible romance with "Friends" star Courteney Cox, a string of embarrassing "buddy movie" scenes opposite a 10-year-old kid and some great Elvis moves in the final credits, Russell really doesn't have much to work with.
At least he has a part, however. The rest of the supporting cast are essentially poorly sketched-out cannon fodder, and are done away with quickly. Thank goodness - David Arquette's lame mugging here is enough to quickly make you nostalgic for his 1-800-COLLECT commercials.
Despite its ultraviolence, self-conscious "hipness," and terrible nu-metal soundtrack, however, "3000 Miles" still manages to end up being nearly enjoyable. Surprisingly, this is almost completely due to Costner.
Love him or hate him, Costner deserves credit for taking on far-fetched roles and leaping into them with gusto. While the resulting films have usually been mind-numbing ego-fests, this one is different.
Playing the role of Murphy, a murderous Elvis impersonator with a scorpion belt buckle who takes his affection for the King way too personally, Costner has finally found a role where self-indulgent overacting works. After all, it doesn't matter how seriously an actor takes himself when he spends half the film done up in late-70s "Fat Elvis" gear. Costner may have been able to play an amphibious junk collector or post-apocalyptic postman with a completely straight face, but not even he can maintain gravitas while wearing a rhinestone-embossed cape and giant sideburns.
Unlike nearly all of Costner's recent roles, Murphy doesn't get the girl. He has no life-shattering epiphanies and no sudden brushes with life's inner meaning. He's a caricature, summed up entirely by dark sunglasses, a sneer and cigarette. And for once, he actually seems to understand the limitations of the part.
A few moments early in the film display Costner's trademark penchant for inappropriate over-emoting, but for the most part, the famously melodramatic actor keeps his squishiness in check. He's actually enjoying himself here, reveling in his character's exaggerated "bad boy" persona and tossing off tough-guy lines with a juicy satisfaction. All cigarette-smoking, gun-toting attitude, Costner is as camp here as he's ever been - but this time, it's on purpose.
"3000 Miles" is far from a good movie - in fact, it's "nothin' but a hound dog" - the filmmaking is poor, the plot paper-thin, the calculated 'shocks" weak and predictable. But you could say the same thing for many recent movies, including some with far grander pretensions.
Costner's Murphy, with his silver-plated handguns and absurd sideburns, is no triumph of the actor's craft. But he is unquestionably a far more entertaining psychopath than Anthony Hopkins's "Hannibal." For an actor with Costner's weakness for snooty self-righteousness, this alone makes "3000 Miles" an Oscar-sized achievement.
