Mini-Review: Three Kings

First off: yes, despite the name, this film does indeed have four protagonists. This could be one of the most deceptive movie titles in history, trailing only Superbad, which was pretty decent, and Grease, which had nothing to do with ancient Athens.

The three--sorry, four--kings of the title are American soldiers stationed in Iraq during the last days of the Gulf War. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) is a family man from Detroit; Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) is a hick without even a high school diploma; Chief Elgin (Ice Cube)works as an airport baggage handler when not in the Army; and Archie Gates (George Clooney) is a smooth-talking media liaison looking forward to retirement.

In the midst of the post-war euphoria, as marines celebrate their victory with drunken fistfights and as Iraqi soldiers surrender by the thousands, Vig and Barlow find a map pointing to a hidden stash of stolen Kuwaiti gold. Where they find the map, I won't say, in order to preserve one of the film's better gags. Let's just say that the map becomes the butt of many other jokes. Oops, I think I gave it away.

Our three--four!--kings load up their humvee and head to Karbala in search of their fortune. It's not the best time to be sightseeing in the Iraqi countryside. Though Saddam's army might have been smashed, the country is still crawling with Iraqi soldiers. Not to mention there's a civil war going on between rebels and Saddamite loyalists. And while our intrepid heroes might have their eyes on the prize, they soon find themselves in the thick of said war.

You might consider this film the evil twin of Saving Private Ryan, which was released a year earlier. The two movies have much in common. Both are unafraid of gore; if you have ever wondered what the inside of a bullet-punctured lung looks like, Three Kings will satisfy your curiosity. And both movies eschew the big picture in favor of the little guy; there are no grand battles, no scenes in the war room, only a bunch of sweaty, dirty men trying not to get shot.

I say "evil" twin, though, because while Saving Private Ryan is patriotic at heart, Three Kings is more interested in puncturing American pretensions. America is the good guy only in the sense that it's better than Saddam. In one scene, for example, the US army does its best to deliver fleeing rebels right into Saddam's hands.

Which leads to one of the most peculiar paradoxes in this film. Believe it or not, but the movie--released in 1999--seems to argue for re-invading Iraq. America is depicted as cowardly for abandoning the country after Desert Storm. It suggests that we invaded only because of Kuwait's oil; once that was secure, we skedaddled.

Flash-forward ten or so years. Now, America is blamed for staying too long, rather than getting out too quick. Now, we stayed, rather than fled, because of the oil. Three Kings is a fine film. I enjoyed it, and I'd recommend it to you. But it will do nothing to disabuse of the notion that, in Hollywood's eyes, everything America does is wrong.