Michael Zane (Kurt Russell) meets Cybil (Courteney Cox) and his thieving kid at a desolate motel. He sleeps with her after 5 1/2 years behind bars. Elvis fanatic Thomas Murphy (Kevin Costner),Hanson (Christian Slater),Gus (David Arquette) and Franklin (Bokeem Woodbine) come to pick him up for a job. They set off to rob the Riviera Casino as Elvis impersonators.

The movie tries so hard to be an edgy crime drama. It starts from the beginning with the CG scorpion battle. It looks cheesy and bad. There is some shoot em up action but not done that well. Too much slow motion is used. Everything is done aggressively that none of it is that compelling. Demian Lichtenstein is simply not at the upper echelon of directors that this movie needs. The kid is so annoying. Some of the characters act stupidly. None of them are likable and there is no rooting interest. It's a slick crime drama but the style doesn't work.

Great costuming for all those Elvis impersonators, especially the guy in the red jumpsuit actually performing, but after the caper that serves as the main plot point of the story, it becomes a bit of a muddled mess. I saw this years ago and had forgotten most of the principal players besides Costner and Russell, so that was about the biggest plus for me this time around. Kevin Costner is particularly vile in his portrayal of Murphy, the brains behind the casino heist, but throwing dead Franklin (Bokeem Woodbine) out of the helicopter was a bit much, don't you think?

And how about all those security guards at the Riviera getting mowed down by Murphy and his bunch? You would think they'd hit more guys than Franklin just by accident with all those bullets flying around. While Murphy stands out there pretty much wide open without getting a nick. Preposterous stuff, but if you go for this kind of thing, it's pretty entertaining.

I did have to rewind the bedroom scene between Kurt Russell and Courteney Cox; did they invent some kind of new Kama Sutra position there? I've never tried it but it didn't look like the angles would work, if you know what I mean. Hey, if Elvis is your guy, you might want to check out a Bruce Campbell flick that came out a year after this one did, called "Bubba Ho-Tep". It's about Elvis Presley, imitating an Elvis Presley impersonator. Try to wrap your head around that idea.

This started with such great style, color and pizazz, I thought I had discovered a real "sleeper," a film I didn't expect to be good that was turning out to be very entertaining.

Well, after the big Las Vegas heist and shortly thereafter when we got a full look at the wild characters and even wilder action scenes, the film settled down and the dialog took over. Unfortunately, that was the film's downfall as the dialog is either incredibly stupid and-or annoying in the second half of this movie. Most annoying was this young kid, you know - the smart-ass kind that says things NO kid his age would say in real life. He also had a foul mouth, and I don't like to see that from young kids.

All the characters in here are pretty much low-life people, the worst being the one played by Kevin Costner, who seemed to relish this role. If you like low-class people, you'll like this story. I gave it points for the style and the fast-moving story, but it's too unpleasant overall for me.