Blu-ray Review: Guns, Girls and Gambling - Been There, Done That - Page 2

Boasting an all "star" cast including Christian Slater, Powers Boothe, Jeff Fahey and the always contemptible Dane Cook, Winnick's ultra-hip-by-'90s-standards assault on the senses is about as predictable as you can get when it comes to being told in a nonlinear fashion, and as unoriginally linear as it tries way too hard to keep the story alive and well by adding a new twist every five minutes. Slater heads the mostly-expendable cast off as a guy named John Smith, who finds himself in a great big heap of trouble after he enters an Elvis competition at an impressive Native American casino somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. It seems the other Elvises (or is that Elvi?) he has unwittingly joined the ranks of — as played by Gary Oldman (Elvis Elvis), Tony Cox (Little Person Elvis), Anthony Brandon Wong (Asian Elvis), and Chris Kattan (Gay Elvis) — actually came to rob the casino of a priceless Native artifact.

Yup, he went the 3000 Miles to Graceland route here, folks. And it really says a lot when you stop to realize how much better of a movie 3000 Miles to Graceland truly was once you suffer through even the first couple of minutes of Guns, Girls and Gambling. Anyway, now our antihero Mr. Smith has been placed within the crosshairs of two warring factions: the trigger-happy local Native Americans (led by Gordon Tootoosis), and the equally-deadly men who work for a power-hungry rancher (Powers Boothe, who looks like he's just glad to be working). Meanwhile, a mysterious blonde lady clad in figure-fitting black (a slightly-talented Helena Mattsson) is going around, quoting Edgar Allan Poe before she dispatches her victims into the netherworld (she should really have been dubbed by somebody else, too, as her reciting of Poe made me twitch).

Really, it sounds a lot better than it is. It's awful, though. Truly, dreadfully, dully awful. And Winnick's cast either chew up the scenery like ravenous termites (including Cindy Park and Jeff Fahey, as well as the aforementioned Cox and the ever-unfunny Cook — the latter of whom in even introduced with goofy comical music, and whose eventual onscreen death didn't so much as warrant a joyous "Yes!" from me, sadly) or they literally just sit back and die an undeservedly untimely demise (e.g. Oldman and Kattan, who probably would have been able to save a scene or two had his Gay Elvis character been allowed to live longer). Towards the end, Winnick has managed to kill off just about every stereotypically unique character he most likely borrowed from someplace else, with the remaining cast being taught a valuable lesson: greed kills.

Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2 — Page 3

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Article Author: Luigi Bastardo

Luigi Bastardo is the disgruntled alter-ego of Adam Becvar, a thirtysomething lad from Northern California who has watched so many weird movies since the tender age of 3 that a conventional life is out of the question. …

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