The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga Review 2024 Tv Show Series Cast Crew Online
A wildly entertaining, naturally humorous, and jaw dropping descent into the world of online conspiracy theories, familial rivalries, and Elvis impersonators, Chapman and Maclain Way’s documentary miniseries The Kings of Tupelo: A Southern Crime Saga is the definition of the word flabbergasting. A sprawling stranger-than-fiction yarn revolving a man with a misplaced hero complex who constantly proves to be his own worst enemy (on top of being an annoyance to many caught in his blustery path). The Kings of Tupelo weaves a masterfully told story of deception and hidden truths, but not the ones envisioned originally by the documentary’s (unfortunately) gregarious subject.
Paul Kevin Curtis was raised in Tupelo, Mississippi, birthplace of the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley. Like many in town, Paul became enthralled with the cult and presence of Presley, eventually becoming an award winning and sought after impersonator, something his brother, Jack (an insurance agent by trade), would also pursue, making them the only brotherly duo tribute act to The King. To make ends meet, Paul worked as a janitor at a local hospital, a job he was good at, but couldn’t stand. On the evening of a Christmas party in the early 2000s, Paul is asked to clean up a clog in the hospital’s morgue, and he stumbles across something he shouldn’t have seen. What he discovers sends him down an internet rabbit hole researching the illegal, black market trade of human body parts, insisting to everyone around him – including local legislators – that there’s a grand conspiracy afoot. Curtis’ tenacity and refusal to believe anything to the contrary makes him a controversial, divisive figure in his community, something that only gets compounded in 2013 when government officials – including then President Barack Obama – are sent letters containing the deadly poison, Ricin. All signs point back to Curtis as the culprit and his cause as the motive. The evidence based on his past behaviours is damning, but does this only moderately educated guy from the deep south have the skills to pull off such a complex scheme?
The Ways (directors of Wild Wild Country and producers of Netflix’s exceptional Untold series of sports related documentaries) try their best to meet Curtis – who’s interviewed extensively at his trailer in an “undisclosed location” – on the subject’s terms. The Kings of Tupelo doesn’t want to treat Curtis, who, to his credit has been through a lot and clearly has some issues, like an outright punchline. Curtis, who’s also a budding screenwriter and a Tony Robbins devotee, has been blessed with the gift of gab and an undeniable amount of charisma and confidence, but also an inability to shut up, especially when saying nothing could be in his best interests long term. Although Curtis’ fascination with conspiracy theories goes back to the earliest days of the internet, his descent into almost total madness speaks to something many in similar situations experience. They seize upon an idea like a bear trap, look for biased, unproven, or entirely baseless facts to back up their claims, and ignore any evidence to the contrary of their beliefs. While The Kings of Tupelo profiles a man who clearly has some regrets, the Ways are also giving a large platform to someone who refuses to admit they were wrong. Curtis made so many enemies in his life that he manifested his own worst fears, causing him to double down on his worst impulses.
That mindset makes the first two episodes of the three part series sometimes hard to get through. The Kings of Tupelo is so locked into Paul Kevin Curtis’ mindset and circular thinking patterns that it can sometimes be hard to sit through. Curtis and some of the assorted “characters” caught up in this story are a lot to deal with, and have plenty of eccentricities of their own, and the subject’s relentless beating of their own drum becomes repetitive. In the early going, The Kings of Tupelo could benefit greatly from a “less is more” approach, but reflections from law enforcement officers who investigated this mess and touching recollections from Curtis’ brother and his three adult children go a long way towards giving some much needed legal and emotional context.
But just when it feels like things have led down the dark path the Ways hinted at early on, the third and final instalment of The Kings of Tupelo masterfully stages a huge rug pull on the viewer and flips everything on its head. I wasn’t entirely familiar with the story at the heart of the Curtis’ case (or maybe I just forgot about it over time), but the third act drops some major bombshells involving another possible conspiracy and a very different kind of impersonation. At this point, The Kings of Tupelo becomes a story that one reporter at the time all of this was going down likened to a Coen Brothers movie, but really it plays more like a shockingly layered, southern fried dipshit version of Inception, where the rabbit hole grows deeper, more large personalities enter the fray, and things become even more baffling. The final episode is a masterfully edited and paced piece of work that hits like the Ways have been sitting on a royal flush since the start and have been bluffing their way towards the biggest payoff with devilishly creative glee.
That huge reveal and the film’s elaborately parsed conclusion make the viewer’s investment of time well worth it. But The Kings of Tupelo more poignantly looks at the complicated nature of conspiracy culture. People tend to believe whatever suits their mood, temper, and world outlook, and any bit of validation, enabling, or vindication can lead to a sometimes unwarranted inflation of self-confidence. When someone in this mindset is given an inch, they see acreage. The Kings of Tupelo is a unique look at the ways people can become radicalized for a cause within the oxygen-free internet echo chamber. It’s also hilarious, shocking, and cringe inducing in the most crowd pleasing of ways.
