Review of Three Kings (1999) by Joshua L — 01 Jan 2009

Three Kings is a millenium-capping antiwar film that employed what were then state-of-the-art tools (fast edits, dizzying camera work, color schemes that pop off the screen) and combined them with old-fashioned - if not out-of-style - leftist politics.

Writer-director David O. Russell tells the tale of the first Gulf War(1991) through the eyes of three American soldiers whose ignorance, greed, and naivete is slowly wiped away as they are dragged deeper into the political and cultural trappings behind the war, forced to humanize their enemies and demystify their own country and military. In the process, the audience is exposed to a version of the Gulf War that the media (particularly the American media) did not and never would report - the deaths of innocents, the corruption and posturing of high-ranking military officials, the co-option of "objective" media to spin the story. It's heady, even dense, stuff made accessible and urgent through a snappy script, relentlessly energetic pacing, dazzling visuals and props, and taut acting from the leads (George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube). An assured juggling of genre and tone shifts - it's part war story, part heist thriller, and wholly and antiwar creed - the film should fall apart at the seams but doesn't strike a single false note.