Review of Three Kings (1999) by Sam C — 16 Jan 2009

A number of years have passed since I last saw Three Kings, but the haze of time and inaccurate memory has never stopped anyone from passing judgment, so off we go! Three Kings is probably the best place to start if you are suddenly struck by the desire to see where George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg began their steep ascent to fame and where Ice Cube laid down his sole moment of acting glory before disappearing into the stinking miasma of mediocrity.

It seems to capture the disillusionment of the first Gulf War that was grounded in the soldiers feeling that all their training and preparation wasn't really needed in the new world after the Fall of the USSR and that they were only there to safe guard the world oil supply rather than fighting for a noble cause.

Of course, looking at it through the lens of the Second Gulf war, along with Afghanistan and various other incidents seriously dates the material. Rather than asking themselves the question "Why fight and die for oil?" a more current movie would be asking the question "Who are we fighting, how can we fight them, and why are they fighting us in the first place?".