Before the opening credits of Three Kings even start to roll, a grievous act of murder has been committed, and part of you can’t help but laugh as it happens. We watch Troy Barlow (played by Mark Wahlberg), one of the handful of ground troops during the Gulf War, as he spies an Iraqi soldier from a distance and takes him down. The joke: Barlow’s inept comrades-at-arms are too busy digging dirt out of their eyes to help. The tragedy: the Iraqi was waving a white flag in an attempt to surrender. And thus the director sets the mood for the emotional roller coaster that is the film Three Kings.
The director of the film, David O. Russell, has begun building a reputation for himself in the movie business that in many ways parallels the career of Kevin Smith. Russell’s first film, Spanking the Monkey, was a little indie film that was well-received by critics and then on the video shelves was discovered by a select few film lovers in search of something different. They found it in this dark comedy dealing with the subject of incest, and it quickly became a sleeper hit, just as Clerks truly found its audience on video.
Russell’s next film, Flirting with Disaster, was a more commercial comedy starring Ben Stiller as an adopted man about to have a child and Tea Leoni as the woman who helps him find his true parents. In this film Russell sort of lost his edge, much like Smith did in Mallrats. Russell traded in the bleakness of his first film for the type of zany comedy more typical of a Hollywood film. And just as Mallrats, with its neatly wrapped-up ending in which the day is saved and everyone gets the girl, did not live up to expectations, so too did Flirting with Disaster fall more than a little flat.
Thank the lucky stars that Hollywood sometimes gives people second chances. If not, we would have missed out on a truly magnificent film. In Three Kings, David O. Russell has
made his Chasing Amy, a film that will be regarded as career-defining in years to come.
As the movie begins, the Gulf War is on its last legs. Troy Barlow is involved in the “mopping-up” process; he and his tagalong friend Conrad Vig (music video director Spike
Jonze) are taking Iraqis prisoner. And in the process, they find hidden on one of the soldiers (I won’t tell you where) a map that they believe shows where Saddam has stashed away stolen Kuwaiti gold. So, joined by Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) and led by Archie Gates (George Clooney), they plan a way that the four of them can go steal the gold for themselves.
Three Kings triumphantly and unapologetically walks the fine line between being just Hollywood enough to draw in viewers and just indie enough to be interesting. Its humor is sometimes unabashedly dark, but also at other times knee-to-the-groin. Its sense of drama is thought-provoking without relying on formula. It’s believable. It’s poignant. It’s a really good film.
The film’s healthy mix of witty and tasteless humor is the focus of the early portion of the film. One scene that demonstrates clearly the effectiveness of this combination comes when the crew are driving to the bunker where they believe the gold is hidden. Chief, Troy, and Conrad are goofing off, shooting Nerf footballs from the back of the moving jeep as if they were skeet. Archie doesn’t think they’re taking the mission seriously, so he stops the jeep and makes them do a run-through of the raid, with a nearby cow standing in as the Iraqi guard. The situation is just absurd enough to tickle your intellect, but then when the crew advances on the cow, it takes a step back onto a land mine and explodes. Instantly the comedy changes pace and goes right for the gut, as the crew get drenched in cow blood but are too shocked to speak.
But after the first half hour of the film, the tone switches pretty drastically from comedy to drama. When the four Americans cruise into this town full of Iraqi soldiers, the reception
from the townspeople is one of extreme joy and relief. The people are starving and the soldiers won’t let any relief in. The town is harboring Iraqi rebels, and although President Bush has publicly supported the rebels, the official stance of the army is to not get involved.
As the crew explores the town, they witness some of the injustices the Iraqi people are forced to endure and inch by inch the hard exterior of non-involvement and selfishness that they have built around themselves begins to crack. But still they stay out of it and we as an audience don’t want them to get involved. We want the film to go the hard road and not have the main characters turn heroic. But finally at a crucial moment, their turning point is reached and they have to stop the horror from continuing. And when they reach that point we have reached it with them. The transition is so gradual and so true to life (and the final impetus of their change is so graphic and abhorrent) that we want them to save the day.
What makes this movie so interesting is the way it flows from one genre to the next, merging comedy with drama with action so comfortably that it feels natural to the audience. Real life does not fit easily into a genre. One day is comedy; the next, tragedy. The same is true of Three Kings.
As the inevitable firefight breaks out between the Iraqis and the Americans, we are treated to another part of what pulls this film together as a strong whole: the beautiful visuals. Each shot moves in slow motion. The film stock suddenly becomes grainy like old war stock footage. The colors become almost too bright, as if time slowed down and the sun brightened to accent each of these key moments.
The visuals work overtime in the action sequences, heightening the tension already permeating the circumstances. During the beginning of the raid, the cuts from Troy, Archie and Chief in the bunker rummaging around to Conrad guarding the entrance
nervously and back are extremely quick. Each individual shot the camera takes is filled to the brim with people and stolen goods that crowd the scene in your mind and add to the intensity of the situation. And later when the Americans are fleeing and the Iraqis are firing gas grenades after them, the audience is likewise bombarded with image after image, while the musical score rises and puts you on the edge of your seat.
But chiefly what lends credibility to the movie and its jumps from genre to genre is its sense of character development. Clooney, Wahlberg, and Ice Cube each do an remarkable job of bringing life to their roles and thus making the film believable. But the true stand-outs in this regard are two of the more minor characters, Conrad Vig and Adriana Cruz.
Spike Jonze does a truly phenomenal job of drawing us into his portrayal. The initial description of him that we are given, that he “wants to be Troy Barlow,” seems fitting, but slowly his performance lets us see the depth of the character beneath the surface. At first he seems to be a racist, brain-dead hick, but the other characters slowly educate him (as shown in his gradual acceptance of Chief and the Iraqis as more than just a skin color). By the end of the film we sympathize with him so much that he has become really central to our own involvement in the film, serving occasionally as a point of identification for the
viewer.
The shift in our perception of Adriana Cruz is equally relevant. Played by Nora Dunn, Cruz is an aging network anchor in the Gulf to cover the war. She is initially portrayed as conniving and always looking for an angle, until in the end she too is touched by the lives of these common people and aids in the soldiers’ efforts to break the rules and get the Iraqi rebels to safety.
The film is at times disturbing, as evidenced by the interrogation scenes and the visual images of people’s guts as they get shot. At other times the movie is totally outlandish,
There is a scene with a helicopter and a football that is totally unbelievable, but still ends up being pretty darn cool. But even these very few rough edges cannot take the shine from the final product, a film that effortlessly dances from visceral laughter to penetrating realism so fluidly that you would be remiss if you did not go see this film. It literally has something for everyone.
