'Three Kings' takes realistic look at Gulf War

'Three Kings' Our opinion: **** Rated R, 115 minutes

George Clooney, Ice Cube and Mark Waklberg star in the Gulf War-based movie "Three Kings."

Of course, someone would make a film about the Gulf War eventually. I didn't have high expectations for this film when I went to see it. I expected a simple action/adventure film with a lot of humor mixed in, where most of the entertainment is in seeing incredibly large explosions, unbelievably close calls, and impossible stunts. While there is plenty of action and humor, it has a more realistic and serious side that took me by surprise. In stead of the expected platitudes and pat answers, this film really does say something about what happened in that war and how it effected the Iraqi people.

The film opens at the end of the war. The soldiers are almost idle, bored, picking up Iraqi army stranglers. While strip searching all the captive soldiers, three American soldiers (Mark Wahlberg, Spike Jonze, and Ice Cube) discover a map hidden in a very personal place on one of the Iraqi soldiers. Realizing that a map hidden in such a way must have some very valuable information, they sneak off to look at it before turning it over to their commanding officer. Right away the talk is of gold, because they know that the bullion the Iraqi took from Kuwait has not been found. While they are examining the map, they are discovered by a Special Forces captain (George Clooney), a man with a cynical attitude and due to retire in a few weeks, who had heard a rumor about the map and had the same thought about gold. They form a plan to set out the next morning, tell know one about the map, grab the gold, and be back by noon.

Of course, a lot of this plan doesn't go as they expect. Writer/director David Russell (whose previous films include "Spanking the Monkey" and "Flirting with Disaster") did extensive research on the war and uses a very intense visual technique to tell his story, and to show the audience, along with the characters, that nothing is as simple as they thought. Very creative cinematography gives this film an unusual look. When the soldiers are alone in the desert, an overexposed look is used to convey the stark brightness and heat of the landscape, causing the audience to almost squint along with actors, and feel their isolation and powerless against the harsh environment. When the soldiers enter the Iraqi village, they can move through the town almost as if they don't exist while the Iraqi soldiers terrorize their own citizens. When they enter the bunkers in search of gold, they find room after room filled with consumer goods - TVs stacked to the ceiling, boxes filled with cell phones, piles of folded new Levis. The effect is as disturbing to the audience as to the characters, and allows us to know what they are feeling.

It appears that the filmmakers were going for a different kind of movie, somewhere between M*A*S*H and Lawrence of Arabia, but I don't think they quite made it. They did however make a very enjoyable movie, one which is much better than others of this type and which I would recommend.

(Now playing at the Chase Park Plaza, Esquire, and other theaters)

by Catherine Marquis-Homeyer