Three Kings VHS Three Kings

Three stars team up for this unusual look at America's role in the war against Iraq. In 1991, as the Gulf War winds to a close, three American servicemen find themselves happy to have achieved victory but wondering about the ultimate importance of what they've done (especially since Saddam Hussein is still in power). Sergeant Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) is a decorated Vietnam veteran and special forces officer with two weeks to go before he retires; Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) has a new baby at home; and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is probably just going to end up back in Detroit. So when one of them comes across a map that seems to point out where Saddam's forces have stashed a large cache of gold they stole from Kuwait, they decide to follow the trail and take some of the war booty for themselves. However, the deeper they journey into Iraq, the more they see of the consequences of America's policies in the Middle East. Although President George Bush and the American military urged Iraqi citizens to rise up against Saddam Hussein, and pledged their support to a people's movement against the leader, Iraqis found that when they took to the streets against Saddam, the United States did not back them up, and the loss of Iraqi lives was fearsome. When Gates, Barlow and Elgin become aware of what's happening, they're torn between their desire to grab the fortune they came for and the demands of their conscience to help the people they came to liberate. Three Kings was directed by David O. Russell and marked a significant change of direction after his dark-humored relationship comedies, Spanking the Monkey and Flirting with Disaster. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

When the 1999 Academy Award nominations were announced Three Kings was completely overlooked. That's a shame because Three Kings was not only one of the year's best movies, it's one of the best anti-war movies ever made.

Combining action, comedy, and political satire, it marks writer-director David O. Russell (Spanking the Monkey, Flirting With Disaster) as one of the most versatile directors working today. While many of today's hot directors are all style and no substance, Russell has made a film that not only looks incredible on the surface, it has a brain and heart behind it as well.

Set at the end of the Persian Gulf War, Three Kings starts off as a heist comedy about a group of soldiers who attempt to steal gold bullion that Hussein's troops have stolen from Kuwait. Of course, everything does not go off as planned and along the way the soldiers are forced to confront the reasons they were sent over there in the first place.

Was it greed for oil, as an Iraqi soldier claims in a harrowing sequence as he tortures young American recruit Troy Barlow -- played by Mark Wahlberg (Boogie Nights) in another surprisingly sensitive, nuanced performance that should make people forget his days as Marky Mark once and for all? Or were Americans defending freedom, as the politicians claimed?

Like most of the troubling questions raised by the film the answer is not always clear. "Are we shooting people?" Barlow asks in the very first scene in the bleached out, sun-drenched Iraqi desert before shooting an Iraqi soldier. It's one of many scenes when we are confronted with the fact that war makes otherwise good people do terrible things. Russell never shies away from making us confront such ugly aspects of war, even going so far as taking the camera into the human body to show what happens when someone is shot. But unlike Saving Private Ryan, which also didn't shy away from showing what bullets could do to bodies, Three Kings doesn't demonize the "enemy." No American film has ever had such well-rounded and complex Arab characters.

The film is full of the absurdist, comic touches that made Russell's other films, which also dealt with sensitive subjects, so enjoyable to watch. When Barlow chastises his fellow soldier Conrad Vig (played by Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze in a wonderful performance) for being insensitive toward Iraqi prisoners of war, he demonstrates the correct way of talking to them by saying politely, "Disrobe like all the other towel heads." Ambitious war correspondent Adriana Cruz (Nora Dunn) remains icy through all her encounters with the horrors of war until she comes upon some ducks caught in an oil slick and bursts into tears.

But as entertaining as the witty dialogue and edge-of-your-seat action sequences are, Three Kings expects you do something you may not be accustomed to doing while watching your average Hollywood film. It expects you to think.

The DVD version of Three Kings is remarkable. It contains a very smart audio commentary by the director and a separate track from the producers as well; a host of deleted scenes, including a wonderful sequence where the soldiers extract drinking water from snow globes depicting the Three Wise Men; and an interview with cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (The Usual Suspects) who describes in detail the experimental techniques used in the film. Also included is a video journal shot by Russell about the surreal and scary process of getting a film made before shooting starts and a hilarious tongue-in-cheek short called An Intimate Look Inside the Acting Process With Ice Cube directed by Spike Jonze. -- Al Weisel

TV Guide Review:

An astonishing movie that keeps you off-balance from the first scene. It starts out a wisecracking, cynical action lark about four Gulf War GIs who see a way to steal a fortune. It ends up a sadly resigned indictment of market-driven American foreign policy, wrapped in a sneakily moving story of personal sacrifice and small, compromised victories snatched from cruel anarchy. That actually counts for a happy ending without feeling like a commercial cop out, and the whole thing is often mordantly funny to boot — what a balancing act! Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) and enlisted men Chief (Ice Cube) and Vig (Spike Jonze) come into possession of a map that shows the location of a bunker full of gold. With the help of thoroughly disaffected special-forces operative Major Archie Gates (George Clooney), they decide to make it their going-away present. "Saddam stole it from the sheiks. I have no problem stealing it from him," says Gates by way of clearing up the heist's ethical dimension, pointing out that amid the post-cease-fire pandemonium, no-one will notice or care what they're doing. Naturally, it doesn't go as easily as they anticipate. Surprisingly, they get sucked into helping a group of anti-Saddam Iraqi refugees who know their only hope of post-war survival lies in fleeing the country before the American military pulls out. The GIs are fairly decent guys, in a lazy kind of way, capable of pretending that wrong is right until somehow utter bloody chaos marches them, one baby step at a time, into doing the right thing at the moment when it stands to cost them the most. This is an amazing leap for writer-director David O. Russell, who graduates from sharply observed, small-scale stories about screwed-up families to a thought-provoking dispatch from a profoundly screwed-up world.  — Maitland McDonagh