I've long been fascinated by Las Vegas. Maybe it began by watching "Oceans Eleven" where the Rat Pack of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter Lawford fend off boredom by hitting 5 casinos on New Year's Eve only to see the loot, well, go up in smoke. It's all rather glamorous, appallingly misogynistic but still kinda fun.

So when I saw the ads for 3000 Miles To Graceland, which are just as cool as could be, I was picturing an Oceans Eleven but with Elvis impersonators. Boy was I surprised.

There's a heist. Kurt Russell, Kevin Costner, Christian Slater, David Arquette, and Bokeem Woodbine decked out in Elvine glam drive to the strip in a sexy 1950's convertible, stride into a casino, rob it, and then shoot everyone and everything in sight. The scene is intercut with an Elvis revue going on elsewhere in the casino. It's cool for about the first 150 bullets, but then becomes tedious, and quickly abhorrent.

After the bloodbath, Graceland loses all similarity to the easy going Oceans possibly transferring allegiance to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, minus the adventure and the character studies, emphasizing only greed and moral corruption. And although Kevin Costner is no Humphrey Bogart, both portray unappealing characters.

Coupled with the heist, Graceland also has a romance of sorts, between Kurt Russell and Courtney Cox. We're never really clear who or what she is, other than a single mother with a penchant for grifting.

The list of names in the supporting cast looks impressive, including Kevin Pollak, Jon Lovitz, and Ice T, but none of them get much to do, and most don't even live through their first scenes.

I do not recommend 3000 Miles to Graceland. It is far too violent, the characters are 2-dimensional and even what we do learn of them, we don't like. However, I haven't yet stopped humming Elvis's song "Such A Night" and I hold in my head the image of what this film could have and should have been, rather than the disappointing mess that it is.


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