Amazon.com video review:
A confident hybrid of M*A*S*H, Treasure of the Sierra Madre,
and Dr. Strangelove, Three Kings is one of the most seriously
funny war movies ever made. Improving the premise of Kelly's Heroes
with scathing intelligence, it explores the odd connection between war and
consumerism in the age of Humvees and cellular phones. Writer-director
David O. Russell's third film (after Spanking the Monkey and
Flirting with Disaster), it's a no-holds-barred portrait of personal
conscience in the volatile arena of politics, played out by one of the most
gifted filmmakers to emerge in the 1990s.
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze (director of
Being John Malkovich) play a quartet of U.S. soldiers who, disillusioned
by Operation Desert Storm, decide to steal $23 million in gold
hijacked from Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's army. Getting the bullion out of
an Iraqi stronghold is easy; keeping it is a potentially lethal
proposition. By the end of their mercenary mission, the Americans can no
longer ignore wartime atrocities (and neither can we--the film is boldly
unflinching), and conscience demands their aid to Kuwaiti rebels abandoned
by President George Bush's fickle wartime policy. This is serious stuff
indeed, but Russell infuses Three Kings with a keen sense of the
absurd, and the entire film is an exercise in breathtaking visual
ingenuity. Despite a conventional ending that's mildly disappointing for
such a brashly original film, Three Kings conveys the brutal madness
of war while making you laugh out loud at the insanity. --Jeff
Shannon
Amazon.com video review:
A confident hybrid of M*A*S*H, Treasure of the Sierra Madre,
and Dr. Strangelove, Three Kings is one of the most seriously
funny war movies ever made. Improving the premise of Kelly's Heroes
with scathing intelligence, it explores the odd connection between war and
consumerism in the age of Humvees and cellular phones. Writer-director
David O. Russell's third film (after Spanking the Monkey and
Flirting with Disaster), it's a no-holds-barred portrait of personal
conscience in the volatile arena of politics, played out by one of the most
gifted filmmakers to emerge in the 1990s.
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze (director of
Being John Malkovich) play a quartet of U.S. soldiers who, disillusioned
by Operation Desert Storm, decide to steal $23 million in gold
hijacked from Kuwait by Saddam Hussein's army. Getting the bullion out of
an Iraqi stronghold is easy; keeping it is a potentially lethal
proposition. By the end of their mercenary mission, the Americans can no
longer ignore wartime atrocities (and neither can we--the film is boldly
unflinching), and conscience demands their aid to Iraqi rebels abandoned
by President George Bush's fickle wartime policy. This is serious stuff
indeed, but Russell infuses Three Kings with a keen sense of the
absurd, and the entire film is an exercise in breathtaking visual
ingenuity. Despite a conventional ending that's mildly disappointing for
such a brashly original film, Three Kings conveys the brutal madness
of war while making you laugh out loud at the insanity. --Jeff
Shannon
