Three Kings

Normally a war is followed by at least fifteen years of telling-it-as-it-wasn't. To produce an antiwar black satire within that time would have been unthinkable... not so for director David Russell.

The plot seems simple. Take a posse of four Desert Storm troopers, ranging from special forces veteran Archie Gates (Clooney), through to the reservists, taking a paid vacation from their dull day-jobs: earnest rookie Troy Barlow (Wahlberg), tough guy Chief Elgin (Cube), and brainless redneck Conrad Vig (Jonze).

The four soldiers retrieve a treasure map, and opportunistically set out to retrieve the stolen Kuwaiti bullion that it points to. The film is set in post-surrender Iraq, so the plan is to 'officially' recover the gold from a bunker full of Saddam's plunder and then leg it over the border to safety. No fuss, definitely no bullets.

However this is a movie, and heists never go according to plan. Things quickly go haywire, but the film doesn't fall into the precipice of predictability. The amoral foursome get stuck in a stand-off, have to helplessly watch the blind cruelty of the Iraqi army, and solve countless moral dilemmas - helping the Iraqi rebels, keeping the gold, getting captured, dodging a court marshal, staying alive.

Three Kings has some radical departures for Hollywood, from a memorable sequence showing the yucky truth about the internal damage a bullet causes, to a caustic dismantling of American foreign policy, exposing just how the world views the U.S.

This is a film that may upset you. It may disturb you. It is intended to. Three Kings caused a fuss in America when it was released with reports in the press claiming that actual cadavers were shipped in, shot, burned and exploded - all for realism. Yep, actual dead people. Sorry to spoil the fun, but we can reveal that they were only dummies. The exploding cow however...

Tony Williams