Angered by images of hippies burning a draft card and protesting against the US government, he grabs a revolver and blasts away at one of the TV screens.
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What movie buff could resist the opportunity to see thespians Spacey and Shannon as icons Nixon and Presley in “Elvis & Nixon?” All that really happened, of course, and the famous photo of Tricky Dick shaking hands with a resplendently collared King might be a magnet on your refrigerator.
As Spacey noted, Nixon “didn’t have an interest in meeting Elvis Presley”. A major pat on the back for director Liza Johnson, who uses her cameras and actors to capture the humor and humanity of this freakish, outlandish meeting without disrespecting two men who for decades have been the punchline for countless jokes.
“Elvis & Nixon” is in theaters this Friday.
“I’m only ever going to play presidents from now on”, the double Oscar-winner deadpanned at a Tribeca Film Festival press conference Monday. “The more you know about it, the crazier it gets”. Initially, Nixon refuses, but staff members Egil Krogh (Colin Hanks) and Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters) eventually talk him into it.
With a running time just under an hour and a half, “Elvis & Nixon” has only a very few slow moments. No one knows what transpired during that meeting.
Elvis’ world is a bit more complicated.
At other times, the pasty-faced Elvis looks like a man on the verge of a breakdown, deeply disappointed by fame. He heads from Nashville, first to Los Angeles to recruit friend/associate/pseudo manager Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), and then to Washington DC to attempt to crash the White House. Shannon, a terrific actor whose features don’t resemble Presley’s at all, does a nice job of avoiding the cartoonish, finding a way to explore the essence of his character, physically and vocally (that slurred “thank you very much.”) And Spacey, who by the way is one of our finest impressionists, avoids mocking; he’s quite amusing as a grumpy, profane man who is deeply uncomfortable in his skin. But he’s nothing like those happy-go-lucky Elvis impersonators we’re used to seeing.
“Elvis & Nixon”, an Amazon Studios/Bleecker Street release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America “for some language”. Did he feel like he wanted to do a show for him?
“I didn’t go into it being a huge Elvis fan”.
Nixon, with the advice of his aides, agrees to the meeting, and the unlikely duo look for common ground so that each can get what they want out of the unscheduled rendezvous.
Go ahead, you can touch the moon rock, the president tells Elvis.
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In the movie, Knoxville – aka PJ Clapp of South Knoxville – portrays Sonny, one of Elvis Presley’s associates who accompanied the King of Rock “n” Roll on a surprise visit to the White House to meet with President Richard Nixon.
