Kurt Russell as Michael and Kevin Costner as Murphy lead this graceless movie, playing a couple of Elvis impersonators who rob a Las Vegas casino during Elvis week. What Elvis has to do with this movie I'll never know. So along with Hanson (Christian Slater), Gus (David Arquette) and Franklin (Bokeem Woodbine), the Elvises (Elvi?) rob the casino in broad daylight, kill at least a dozen security guards and cops, and then head out to split the money. Of course there is some double crossing along the way, Courteney Cox may or may not be in on it, her annoying little kid plays a role, and the survivors all travel slowly towards Canada. So while the heist goes down within the first 45 minutes of the movie, the remaining hour and 15 minutes involves everyone chasing everyone else down, with some nice violence thrown in to keep us happy.

So I understand the idea that if you rob a casino during Elvis week, while dressed up as Elvis, there's more chance for you to blend into the crowd and get lost. However, when you then decide to open fire and kill everyone in sight your cover is pretty much blown. Courteney Cox plays Cybil, a down home girl who lives somewhere outside of Vegas doing... well I'm not sure what she does, other than Michael. I must say that she looks as good as I've ever seen her, and were it not for her looking so good, I may have actually gotten up and left this movie, because it was easily as insipid a movie as I've ever seen. Some of the dialogue in this movie sounded like it came from a good movie, but was then transplanted into this one. After Cybil leaves her kid to run off with the $3 million, she runs into the kid and Michael after being kidnapped by Murphy. She starts yelling at Michael after he accuses her of leaving her kid with a total stranger. So what does she say? "I didn't leave him with a total stranger, I left him with you!" Of course Cybil and Michael had a long history together, having met two days earlier and having had sex twice. I don't know about you, but there is no one I'd rather leave my son with, than someone I've known for a couple of days AND had sex with twice. Then near the end of the movie as Michael and Cybil part company, Michael says that he can't trust Cybil because she's turned on him a couple time during the movie. Cybil looks deep into his eyes and says sometime like, "It's not me you can't trust, it's yourself you can't trust." What the hell does that mean?

Costner's character is just a straight bad ass that enjoys killing people, whether he needs to or not. He may or may not be related to Elvis, so apparently he has a right to kill people. One of the stupidest scenes in the movie was probably the showdown in the middle of the road between Murphy and a cop that just pulled him over for speeding. Did the writers actually think that the audience would believe that a cop is going to have an old fashioned Wild West shootout in the middle of a traffic stop? C'mon, at least try and make the movie slightly believable. And the fight scenes in general were underwhelming. Maybe I'm spoiled from watching The Matrix or Face/Off or any of those kinds of movies. All the gun play scenes were just boring violence. Hmm... I wonder if I've become de-sensitized to violence now. That would be sad. Although it did bother me watching the little kid play with his toy guns all the time.

The entire movie just jumped from place to place. Were we supposed to care for any of these people? It seemed like we were supposed to feel something for Michael, Cybil and the kid, but I was hoping they'd all die. Michael was part of a robbery that killed a dozen people. Cybil left her kid to take the money. The kid was a thief and a pickpocket who liked playing with guns. So why am I supposed to care if they live or die? There were no redeeming qualities about this movie. I read somewhere that Kurt Russell wanted a different cut of the film, one that concentrated more on his relationship with Cybil, while Costner was happy with this version. I'm not sure if another edit would have made this movie any better, but it might have actually made me care about a couple of the characters.

And for a movie that talks about Elvis a lot, there certainly wasn't a whole lot of Elvis music on the soundtrack. The soundtrack wasn't bad actually, but I think if the entire movie was scored using Elvis tunes, it would have been a lot better. Well maybe not a lot, but a little. So overall, 3000 Miles to Graceland is a waste of time. If you're enamored with Courteney Cox I'd wait for this on video, but other than that, there really is no reason to see this movie.

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