Harvey Keitel acting in almost any movie will turn up the heat and his ability to steal scenes playing many various characters is well known. Having just watched this road trip adventure/fantasy film I came away with the feeling that I was glad to have seen Harvey Keitel play the delusional Elivis Presley who to the other characters surprise, Byron Gruman (Johnathon Schaech) this Elvis impersonator seemed to know far too many remote and personal moments of the real Elvis's life.
The first half of the film grabs you and holds you until the end of the film, but the latter half is weak and Elvis's kink in his armor is gradually revealed.
I give this film a passable 5 out of 10 rating.
Plot summary
An eccentric drifter claiming to be Elvis Presley hitches a ride with a young man and they find themselves on an adventurous road trip to Memphis.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
January 10, 2024 at 02:30 PM
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Top cast
Tech specs
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An interesting yet slipshod road trip adventure
Low-key road trip with "Elvis" about grief, wonder, healing and love
A peculiar drifter claiming to be Elvis (Harvey Keitel) catches a ride with a grief-stricken young man (Johnathon Schaech) and they travel from the Southwest to Memphis to make the anniversary of the real Elvis' death, August 16th. Along the way they run into a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Bridget Fonda).
The best thing about "Finding Graceland" (1998) is the intriguing eccentricity of the 'Elvis' character. It takes Burn (Schaech) a long time to catch a grip with him, as it does the viewer: Does 'Elvis' REALLY believe he's Elvis or is he a con?
If he's a con, why does he throw money on the floor like it's worthless to him? How could he possibly know the minutia about Elvis that he does? If he's a drifter, where does he get the kind of cash he can just throw around at whim? True, he may get gigs as an impersonator, but do they seriously pay enough to have his attitude? The answers are there if you reflect on the data.
In addition, the road trip element is entertaining and Bridget was in her prime at 33-34. But it's the characters and the potent themes of grief, wonder, healing and love that win the day. I can see how some would roll their eyes at the hinted fantasy elements, but I found the film touching and heartwarming.
The movie runs 1 hour, 37 minutes, and was shot in Hollywood & Tunica, Mississippi; Memphis, Tennessee; and some spots in the Southwest.
GRADE: B+
Slow movie building toward a solid end.
I was completely bored for the first hour of this movie. To be honest, Winkler does very little in the beginning to make the story interesting. The initial interactions between Byron and Elvis seemed one dimensional and uninteresting, and absolutely nothing made Byron Gruman endearing as a character Until well past the first hour. Keitel was, of course, good in his role but Schaech was stiff and the direction was actually quite bad in places. Bridget Fonda plays a somewhat endearing Marilyn Monroe impersonator, only annoying while her character is "in character." Truth be told I was tempted to turn the movie off halfway through it and go on to one of the other titles I had rented for the weekend. I am glad I did not. The movie is entertaining for the last 45 minutes and toward the end Schaech finally reaches down deep to pull off a rather heartwarming performance. This is a multi-faceted story of redemption, with every character eventually finding something they had needed all along. Finding Graceland is most definitely worth the price of a video rental so long as you can stand a long and often boring buildup. In the end the story aptly uses the growing mythology of The King to tell a story that is worth the time it takes to hear it.