“Elvis & Nixon” features an award-winning ensemble cast, including Academy Award-winner Kevin Spacey and Academy Award-nominee Michael Shannon, along with Johnny Knoxville, Alex Pettyfer and Colin Hanks.
In 1970, Elvis Presley (Michael Shannon) flies to Washington D.C. with the goal of convincing President Richard Nixon (Kevin Spacey) to deputize him as a federal agent-at-large. Showing up unannounced at the Northwest Gate of the White House with his buddy Jerry Schilling (Alex Pettyfer), Presley persuades awe-struck guards to hand deliver a letter to Nixon requesting a secret meeting.
White House staffers Egil “Bud” Krogh (Colin Hanks) and Dwight Chapin (Evan Peters) tell the president that a sit-down with Elvis during an election year could generate good PR, but Nixon is in no mood to humor the legendary rocker.
Undeterred, Jerry and Elvis’ sidekick Sonny (Johnny Knoxville) re-group with Krogh and Chapin to hatch a deal: Elvis will sign an autograph for Nixon’s daughter Julie in exchange for face time with the president. Prior to making his grand entrance, Presley is instructed in a litany of White House protocols, which he quickly disregards. To Nixon’s surprise and the astonishment of his nervous aides, the pair bond over their shared contempt of counterculture.
Based on an actual encounter that took place on December 21, 1970, “Elvis & Nixon” hilariously re-imagines the unlikely meeting between rocker and politician as dramatized by two of America’s finest actors. The film tells the untold story behind this revealing yet humorous moment in the Oval Office forever immortalized in the most requested photograph in the National Archives.
“One of the most entertaining movies I’ve seen this year!” raves Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times. “Whip smart! Michael Shannon is hilarious. Kevin Spacey builds one of the best Nixons ever captured onscreen. Wickedly funny!”