Friday, October 1, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A·Page 7
Entertainment
Ice Cube and George Clooney star in Three Kings, also featuring Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze. Director David O. Russell successfully combines action and drama in this movie about the Gulf War, which opens tonight.
Contributed photo
Three Kings worth its weight in gold
Wahlberg shines; movie could gain Oscar attention
Kansan movie critic
The first 10 minutes of *Three Kings* resembles an MTV commercial for *The Grind: Desert Storm Party!*. A group of soldiers celebrating the end of the war, jumping around to early '90s hip-hop and getting drunk. I went into this movie wary of this comedic way of looking at war. After Saving Private Ryan, no one's laughing anymore. But I soon realized that the music video tone of the beginning was central to the film, because it mirrored the soldiers' attitude towards the war at that time, and contrasted so nicely with the serious attitude they come to adopt as the movie develops.
This movie was, by far, the best movie I've seen all year. It has Oscar written all over it.
On the technical side, the direction and cinemagraph is incredible. David O. Russell (Flirting with Disaster) is experimental but stays away from the cliche shots used in music videos and commercials—the only true experimental media today
— and remains inventive. He works nicely with cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel (Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil), getting some impressive time-lapse shots and a great bullet's-point-of-view angle that illustrates the grisly effects of gunfire a little too vividly. The handheld sequences all appear at appropriate times — when this was a music video fad, action movies started using them far too much.
All four main characters are equally wonderful as unwilling army reservists who evolve from greedy opportunists to noble soldiers. Spike Jonze makes his acting debut as Conrad Vig, a not-so-bright private
Commentary
from a small town who tags along on the mission. Jonze is best known for his prominence as a director of music videos.
Most impressive was Mark Wahlberg. In an intense torture sequence in which he and Iraq Capt. Sa'id (Sa'id Taghmaini) discuss wartime politics and losing their families, he does not buckle easily and does not whine about how he was just a reservist and had no stake in this war. Instead, he upholds that
he agrees with the U.S. point of view, and both men learn something about the other side. At one point, Sa'id says — referring to M i c h a e l Jackson's skin becoming whiter— "Your sick country makes the black man hate himself."
Another tie to U.S. race relations occurs earlier in the movie when the three men walk into a room of stolen goods, and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) catches his first glimpse of the Rodney King videotape on a stolen TV.
The audience who will most appreciate this film is the twenty-somethings. We may enjoy Saving
Film combines political speech with big action
By Brendan Walsh
Kansan movie critic
PLOT SUMMARY
Turning an action/adventure movie into something that examines the morality of war is a difficult thing to do. Somehow David O. Russell, the ambitious director and writer of *Three*
At the end of the Gulf War, three American soldiers (Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze) find a map with the secret location of an Iraqi bunker. They suspect the bunker is filled with gold stolen by the Iraqis as they were leaving Kuwait. Together with Archie Gates (George Cloney), a seasoned green beret, the soldiers set out across the desert, expecting to quickly pick up the gold, be back by lunch time and be set for life.
Entering the rural Iraqi village where the bunker is located offers the American soldiers their first interaction with Iraqi civilians. The people they see are poor, hungry and being kept under strict control by the Iraqi army. After finding the gold and witnessing the persecution of the destitute Iraqi citizens, the soldiers take it upon themselves to bring 50 or so of the civilians across the border to Iran, so they can be free of Saddam Hussein's control.
Help comes to them, however, in the form of Iraqi freedom fighters battling the forces of Hussein.
Private Ryan and Platoon, but we didn't live through them. Hearing music we grew up with and seeing familiar situations makes this film a winner.
Kings, manages to do just that.
The overall thrust of *Three Kings* — that the U.S. Army let the Iraqi people down by not re moving Saddam from power and by encouraging, but not aiding, armed resistance against their leader by Iraqi militia groups — is a complicated one. It's a topic that enjoyed only brief public debate, which was largely drowned out by cheers of victory after the Gulf War.
Three Kings, with regard to its more serious message, can be measured by audience reaction to the film.
Guns, explosions and killing are pro im en t throughout the film. Initially it seemed that, as
Commentary
in most action movies, the violence was for the primary purpose of entertaining dull-witted people. But the effectiveness of
At the beginning of the movie, Mark Wahlberg's character shoots and kills an Iraqi soldier who may or may not have been resisting surrender to the U.S. forces. At the screening I went to, this was met with a huge laugh. The pattern continued through the first third of the movie: general hilarity at the killing of Iraqis. As the movie's plot develops, though, audience reaction to the violence changed.
While U.S. involvement in Iraq would definitely make an interesting full-length documentary, the movie's producers exposed a much broader audience to the moral issues surrounding U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. Truth be told, only a few thousand people who already have an interest in the U.S.'s failings in the Gulf War might go to see a documentary on it. By targeting fans of action movies, the producers are reaching a group of people who might otherwise remain ill informed, or at least unconcerned.
Three Kings does have short-comings. All but a few of the Iraqi charters are portrayed either as senseless brutes, the pawns of Saddam Hussein, or destitute, ignorant people who can do nothing but scream and wail. The plot twists, which help the soldiers in their quest, seem a bit too convenient.
Three Kings is a unique political commentary that is worth seeing. And if that's more than your friends can handle, tell them there are lots of explosions.
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