During the opening moments of “Elvis,” Baz Luhrmann’s razzle-dazzle romp through the life and music of Elvis Presley, I couldn’t stop staring at one actor in particular. I’d entered the theater knowing almost nothing about the movie or who was in it, and although I had some idea of whom I was looking at, I couldn’t be entirely sure. That’s not at all a common response to seeing Tom Hanks onscreen, but then, was this really Hanks, so familiar in countenance and yet so discomfiting in effect? Eventually, I had to conclude — reluctantly — that it was indeed him, emoting from beneath pounds of ruddy latex and jabbering in an overblown accent traceable to somewhere in the vicinity of the Netherlands.
The occasion for all this artifice is a relatively rare (for Hanks) display of onscreen villainy. He plays Col. Tom Parker, the Dutch-born carnival barker-turned-music impresario who managed and exploited Presley for years. History takes a dim view of the man, and so does “Elvis,” which topped the weekend box office and impishly casts Parker in the role of indignant, none-too-reliable narrator.
In swirling flashbacks, we see Parker cajoling Elvis (Austin Butler) into an exclusive contract, shaping the direction of his career and manipulating his image to suit the censors. Most egregiously, he traps Elvis in a seven-year Las Vegas hotel residency that will become an early grave, all so that Parker can pay off his gambling debts, fund his extravagant lifestyle and keep some personal skeletons in the closet.
