‘Graceland’ has no saving grace
Oh Kevin Costner. What are we going to do with him? We loved him in “The Untouchables.” We got weepy-eyed watching his heroic struggles in “Field of Dreams.” In “Bull Durham” we watched him play an aging minor league slugger forced to come to terms with his waning career. Who could have guessed how prophetic that movie would be?
Why did he make “Waterworld?” The only thing we learned from that movie was that people with gills are really, really creepy. Not satisfied with his first post-apocolyptic flop, he decided to forge ahead with the “The Postman.” Disaster again. Now he’s 3,000 miles from Graceland, and getting colder by the minute.
“Graceland” was a bad movie, but I count it as some of Costner’s better acting. He relies too heavily on guaranteed plots to make him seem talented. It’s not hard to look good when you’re building a baseball field that lures the game’s greatest players back from the afterlife. All that soggy nostalgia could make Pauly Shore seem talented. Well, maybe not.
But during these kinds of films, it’s easy to overlook the fact that behind his good looks, Costner projects his characters with the skill of a third-grader reading his part from a giant multicolored cue card. It’s interesting, then, to watch him in movies where the plot isn’t so emotionally charged. Take away the scent of oiled glove leather or panoramic Badlands vistas and we hate his movies every time. “Graceland” was no exception.
One of the film’s first scenes shows Costner and company robbing a casino. It consisted of violent gunplay intercut with Elvis imitators crooning amid dancing showgirls. It went on and on and on. Although the camera work was visually pleasing, it was clear from the beginning that we were seeing everything this film had to offer.
The MTVish action scenes shouldn’t have been a surprise given the fact that Demian Lichtenstein (of music video fame) directed them. The opening credits even featured two cartoon-looking computer animated scorpions locked in mortal combat. It could have been a Motley Crue video.
The movie attempted a love story (sort of) between Kurt Russell and Courteney Cox-Arquette. (I also found it interesting to note that her husband landed a role in this film. Must have been a package deal.) It even had a little sub-plot about Costner’s character being a true descendant of Elvis. These were neither well-developed nor interesting.
Much of the story never made sense. I just couldn’t reconcile Russell’s character. The film portrayed him as both a cold-blooded hired gun and a deeply sentimental, almost fatherly hero. Nor did it fully explain Costner’s motivations. He was just a bad guy through and through. Action movies are as much about action characters as they are about car chases and gunplay. I thought flashy, well-armed, two dimensional villians were on the wane in Hollywood. I guess not.
Kevin Pollack and Thomas Haden Church had limited but promising roles as federal marshals, but the movie stayed true to its own sense of badness by avoiding them as much as possible.
What about this being some of Costner’s best acting? Well, it was. I don’t know why. He just seemed to fit the role Thomas Murphy – a chain-smoking psychopath. At least he didn’t have gills.
Grade: D+