STARRING: Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Courteney Cox, Christian Slater and David Arquette

They killed the black guy.

African American characters in action movies are like the red-shirted crewmen in the original "Star Trek." They’re always the first to go. It’s starting to become as big a cliché as a car crashing into a fruit cart during a chase scene. When I see a black guy in a movie, I immediately start praying that he’ll make it out alive. If he does, then I know the filmmakers put a little thought into this thing instead of relying on old chestnuts. Well, the brother buys it about 30 minutes into "3,000 Miles to Graceland" and it all goes downhill from there.

This movie stumbles more than a blind man hiking in the Grand Canyon.

Writer/director Demian Lichtenstein and co-writer Richard Recco have made a sloppy, paint-by-numbers action movie. The heist gone wrong, the violent but funny bad guy, the crook with a heart of gold, the smart-ass kid sidekick — it’s like they cribbed this stuff from a handbook somewhere. The movie feels like it was pasted together by a couple of 13 year-olds inspired by a double feature of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Honeymoon in Vegas."

The movie’s premise had legs. A group of thugs dress up like Elvis so they can rob a Vegas casino during an Elvis convention. Had the film stayed on that path, we could have been treated to a pretty fun ride. Tough guys trying hard not to blow their cover while they prance around in sequined jumpsuits. Some of them getting pulled into a talent show so they can distract the audience while the others do the big heist. It could have been kooky fun.

Call me crazy (You're crazy! -Ed.), but when you have something as big as a casino robbery in your movie, shouldn’t you save it for the finale? Movies consist of a series of big moments connected by a bunch of little moments. You want to keep the excitement consistent throughout or you lose the audience. Shoot your wad too soon and people are snoozing in their Junior Mints by the end.

Maybe Lichtenstein and Recco thought they were being unpredictable by staging the heist within the first 30 minutes. They probably assumed they were going to shake everybody up with a big, bloody shoot-out within the first hour. What they actually did was catch us off-guard. We weren’t ready for all the mayhem so early. We wanted to see movie stars playing Elvis for at least another hour.

They goosed the audience too soon and the rest of the movie suffers. It goes on for another 90 minutes with the characters double-crossing each other for the loot. When you start a movie so flamboyantly with Elvis costumes, Las Vegas, and big nasty gunplay, I’m wondering if you really want to severely change the pace by turning it into a cat-and-mouse game? These filmmakers aren’t skilled enough to pull this stunt off effectively.

Kurt Russell knows he's in a bad movie and rolls with it.

Case in point: Lichtenstein is a music video director making his first big budget movie. I could guess his pedigree without even glancing at his bio. From images played in fast-forward to quick cuts to varying film stocks, this flick is over-saturated with music video visuals. Somebody tell Hollywood that not every bonehead working at MTV is the next David Fincher. Lichtenstein sacrifices story — sometimes even coherence — for "cool" images.

Screenwriter Recco doesn’t do much to help by delivering a hackneyed script and poorly drawn characters. With filmmakers this inept, a movie rises and falls on the charisma of its stars. Unfortunately, "3000 Miles to Graceland" stumbles more than a blind man hiking in the Grand Canyon. A motley crew of has-beens and wannabes populates the cast.

Kevin Costner, that ringing in your head is the alarm signaling the end of your career. Dude, what happened to you? If you had asked me 10 years ago for my favorite actor, I would have said Big Kev without hesitation. The guy did some stellar work in the late eighties and early nineties, but he has been riding the Crappy Movie Express for several years now.

Costner has become a cautionary tale. Here’s a guy who made some amazing movies, won some Oscars, then started believing his own hype. He forgot that most of his success could be attributed to gifted directors and started thinking he was some kind of acting/directing juggernaut. Costner took roles beyond his range and directed self-important movies that no one wanted to see. Now what looked like quality a few years ago seems more like a fluke.

Memo to Kevin Costner: that ringing in your head is the alarm signaling the end of your career.

Kev-O is currently scrambling to reconnect with an audience. Any audience. He’s tried to please middle-aged housewives with the weepy romance "Message in a Bottle." Then he hit up their history-buff husbands with the Cuban Missile Crisis drama "Thirteen Days." Now he’s after their teenage sons with the testosterone-laced "3,000 Miles to Graceland."

In his latest Hail Mary pass, Costner plays the badass villain. He gives it a good try, but his performance is overwhelmed by the stink of desperation. The juvenile script and cheesy direction don’t help much either. It’s like putting out a campfire with a bucket of vodka. If you ask me, the man is sinking fast. Costner is two flops away from headlining a detective show on CBS.

Meanwhile, co-star Courteney Cox wants everyone to know that she can play a vamp even after seven years on a sitcom. She comes off a little too trampy. The rest of the cast consists of her hubby David Arquette ("Scream 3") and Christian Slater ("Heathers" and "Very Bad Things"), who have little more than cameos as Costner’s henchmen. There’s also Bokeem Woodbine ("Life") as the aforementioned token black guy and Kurt Russell ("Escape from New York" and "Breakdown") as our hero. Russell is the only guy who escapes this thing unscathed. He knows he’s in a bad movie and rolls with it.

"3,000 Miles to Graceland" is not a terrible film. If you caught this movie on HBO at 3 a.m. sometime when you couldn’t sleep, you might actually enjoy it. You probably need to be half-awake and desperate for distraction to truly appreciate what this film offers. There is a kernel of something better deep inside it. The "guys robbing a casino dressed as Elvis" idea is still a good one, the action scenes — while incongruous — generate a bit of adrenaline, and Kurt Russell’s constant winking at the camera is a kick. Plus, there’s the added pleasure of watching Kevin Costner’s career disintegrate before your eyes.