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In a better world, Gary Oldman would win an Oscar for impersnating Elvis in a movie like this one - alas, this is the not the case....
Universal / 90 MInutes / 2011 / Unrated / Street Date: January 8, 2013
Any movie that features Gary Oldman as an Elvis impersonator is absolutely worth at least moderate interest, but even though the Oscar-nominee riffs through his Presley-isms with devoted glee, Guns, Girls, and Gambling is a nightmare. Playing out like one of the myriad of post-Pulp Fiction straight-to-video gangster flicks that we all used to rent on VHS (and never fully enjoy), this self-described genre tale is a yawn.
There sure are some faces in Guns, Girls, and Gambling that hearken back to a 1990s heyday, though. We start the film following John Smith (Christian Slate), who is stuck at a middle-of-nowhere Indian casino and decides - as everyone would - to enter an Elvis impersonation contest that is taking place there. From this postmodern ledge, we find that a robbery is being planned (for a super-valuable Native relic), and that there aren't too many degrees of separation between Smith, Oldman's professional hunka-burnin'-love, and even the reliable Powers Boothe, who appears as a local bigwig ready to claim the artifact as his own.
To be blunt, Guns, Girls, and Gambling is the sort of film that begs the question: How did they get these actors to sign on? I understand that Slater may not exactly be the $10 million man at this point, but post-Harry Potter and -Tinker Tailor Oldman is in high demand, and the fact that he (and the other folks cobbled together here) chose such a lark of a project is implicitly intriguing. And, for what it's worth, it's important to have a topic like this to think about when the movie is playing - there are multiple opportunities to be bored here.