Ice Cube, George Clooney, and Mark Wahlberg in Three Kings
Three Kings (opening October 8) is an offbeat action adventure set in March of 1991 just as the United States was officially wrapping up Desert Storm in Iraq.
Three Kings gets off to a brilliant start. Shot in grainy, sun bleached sand tones, the first third of the movie darts around with frenetic energy and flippant humor. Writer-director David O. Russell introduces us to his quartet of main characters: Archie Gates (George Clooney), a career soldier with a penchant for insubordination; Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), an idealistic new father who just wants to get back home; Chief Elgin (Ice Cube), a baggage handler from the Detroit Airport who puts his faith in God; and Conrad Vig (Spike Jones), a geeky redneck who desperately wants a war adventure that will lift him out of mediocrity back home. The four are brought together by a map that Troy finds wedged in the posterior of an Iraqi prisoner. The map supposedly reveals the location of Sadaam's stash of Kuwaiti gold boullion and the four men feel that it's theirs for the taking. But what starts as a mercenary mission turns into a humanitarian one as the soldiers come face to face with the Iraqi people and the complexity of their situation.
The film has a sharp satiric sting in the early scenes and Russell teases us with what could be a Catch 22 or M*A*S*H for the nineties--the kind of film that can point out the absurdities of war, politics and the military. But when the characters and the film discover their political consciousness, the film looses its pace, zing and edge. All of Russell's social and political observations are commendable but its a shame that he sacrificed the films innovative style and savage irony to become a politically correct commentary.
Despite these failings, Three Kings remains an entertaining and compelling film.
