PROTECTING THE KING

The one thing to keep in mind when watching Protecting The King (PTK) is that it is NOT about Elvis Presley, it's a movie about his stepbrother, David Stanley, and his relationship with "The Big E". I assumed before watching this movie that it was going to be a disaster, since it was directed and co-/written by David Stanley. PTK turned out to be an acceptable movie even if, at 94 minutes, it is still a mite too long.


I can sum up the movie pretty quick: Elvis was nice to David. Elvis took David on the road with him. The road corrupted David. Elvis took a lot of drugs. David slept with a LOT of women (Letting us know that he slept with a LOT of women must have been very important for David, since that point is hammered home over and over.) Elvis dies from too many drugs. David sees the light and gets clean.


Peter Dobson was terribly miscast as Elvis (he looked more like Michael Madsen). PTK would have been improved some, if they had cast someone with a little more believability (with all the Elvis impersonators, that shouldn't have been too hard). Of course, the word "ELVIS" was never used in the movie, he was always referred to as either "The King" or "The Boss" (I guess to avoid lawsuits). Along with not using Elvis' name, the members of his close entourage all have their names changed for the movie. The movie even changed RCA to RAC (which for some reason gave me a brain cramp every time I heard RAC in the movie)


IF you're interested in the life of David Stanley (as told by David Stanley) or somewhat interested in what life was like around Elvis then you will probably like PTK (You will still need to take into account that the movie is slanted to show David Stanley's interpretation of events.) IF you are looking for a movie about Elvis and don't have any interest in David Stanley, I would definitely recommend watching something else.