the soldiers of three kings have taken their cue from movies about vietnam .
( fitting , since the media - saturated gulf war became a pop entertainment . )
while driving through a long , flat iraqi desert ( in a humvee with a bart simpson hood ornament ) , one of the men under special forces sgt .
maj .
archie gates ' ( who 's steering )
command requests a beach boys tune .
these men want their apocalypse now moment , only instead of surfing , they bop to the music and skeet
shoot out the back of the vehicle , armed with automatic rifles .
our three kings ( okay , four ) are good fighters , but they do n't necessarily take operation desert storm seriously - it 's a reprieve from their hellish day jobs .
they are gates , new father sgt .
troy barlow ( wahlberg ) , sgt .
chief elgin ( cube ) , and pvt .
conrad vig ( music video director jonze ) .
at story 's start , president bush has declared a ceasefire , and american troops are tying up loose ends .
barlow , elgin , and vig discover during a round up of iraqi captives an " ass - map " that points to a bunker filled with gold bullion .
gates leaves his jurisdiction to commandeer the situation ; he proposes - demands - that barlow , elgin , and vig join him on a treasure hunt .
ditching his escort , a relentless reporter named adriana cruz ( nora dunn ) , is easy .
so is finding the treasure , until the four men realize the magnitude of discord still breathing in iraq : saddam 's men are threatening the dictator 's detractors ( citizens of his own country ) with violence .
when gates and company arrive at the bunker with a stolen truck , ready to loot , the unarmed rebels want help .
( bush encouraged them to rise up against the government , but provided no military support for such cause . )
gates convinces the vault 's guards that this is a post - war mission , and even accepts their assistance in loading the truck .
the situation could go off without a hitch : the former enemies bear no grudges .
but the money hungry gates has a conscience , and when one female bystander is shot by a sadistic grunt before these americans have left the scene , he orders barlow , elgin and vig to open fire on the surrounding arab forces .
the result : barlow is kidnapped , and the filmmakers imply that these would - be kings are seeing more action than they ever did during wartime .
barlow is eventually locked in a dank room and wired up to a shocking device .
his interrogator lost his family to the bombs , and he wants barlow to imagine the demise of his own wife and child .
( he does , in chilling , lasting images . )
i liked these scenes best , because the political became personal .
it 's one thing to champion the plight of thousands ; it 's another to see a ceiling cave in atop a baby in a crib .
russell has shocked us before : his first film , spanking the monkey , is about a young man 's affair with his bedridden mother .
( it 's great . )
his second , flirting with disaster , features a character who has an armpit fetish .
one could argue that it 's easier to make an audience react to such sexual deviance than explosions , though ; russell disturbs us in three kings by being no - nonsense about the violence .
when barlow conjures the detonation of his suburban home , russell mutes
the sound - we're paying attention to the debris instead of thx bombast .
three kings is russell 's first visually arresting picture .
stylistically , it stands apart from other war dramas .
newton thomas sigel 's cinematography of the exteriors is overexposed and extremely grainy , which is , of course , entirely appropriate .
one practically breaks out in sweat staring at the screen .
( a friend enthusiastically added , " it 's like having sand in your eyes . " ) this also helps to blur the fact that the actual locations are far removed from the persian gulf facade .
( three kings was shot in arizona , california , and mexico . )
russell throws plenty at sigel 's camera for it to observe -
as was the case with russell 's previous efforts , the most absurd moments are also the film 's most realistic , even the most poignant .
( we watch a bullet puncture an organ from the inside . ) if anything , three kings settles down and stops surprising us .
its climax is pure hollywood , no doubt the answer to why a major studio felt comfortable getting into bed with the indie - minded russell .
subsequently , the characters become more cartoonish - barlow 's post - torture revelry felt phony , and chief , a strong presence in the first third , fails to escape the god - fearing - ultra - serious - anti - racist - black - man - of - power clich ?
-so much for cube avoiding token status .
( the arab players , on the other hand , duck stereotype . )
clooney , too , transforms into a blandly heroic protestor - marching with the rebels , i waited for him to shout , " let my people go !
"
hayseed vig notwithstanding , the protagonists are very intelligent , and self - serving , too ; i had a glimmer of hope , based on russell 's filmography , that our antiheroes would revert to their greedy selves at some juncture .
( it 's not spoiling much to write that . )
then again , what historical importance would such nastiness serve ?
( there 's already enough cynicism in the film 's mentioning of kuwait 's oil - infested waters . )
russell offers the masses a primer on the oft - dismissed gulf conflict , and pulled off a neat trick : a war tale full of battles that takes place after a truce has been declared .
if he set out to make something socially / culturally / politically / globally significant , he succeeded . with flair .
Output: P