Rating: 
Summary: More "Hard to Swallow"
Review: This is an addendum to my previous comments about the lack of realism in the movie...A Staff Sergeant is not called "Chief"... Map locations in the army are given with alphanumeric gridzone designators which typically consist of 2 letters followed by 4, 6, or 8 numbers (depending on the required level of precision). But the map locations given in Three Kings did not follow this - or any other known - format. They were gibberish... I'm not an explosives experts but I know C4 is pretty benign until it meets with heat and/or pressure. It's unlikely that a nerf ball with C4 taped to it would explode when hitting a helicopter as it does in the movie. In any case, it would have never made contact with the helicopter in the first place because the downward wash from the blades would have knocked the ball off target... This movie would have been a lot more fun to watch (at least for this Desert Storm veteran) if it had paid a little more attention to detail and authenticity.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed but all the more endearing for it
Review: Imperfect but wildly endearing tour de fource (a tired phrase, but it fits here) about four Gulf War soldiers who get a chance to grab a pile of Kuwaiti gold. Mad directorial touches abound: the effects of a bullet are described in surgically precise detail; the flashbacks to civilian life are hilarious; the desert photography is appropriately oversaturated and grainy. Spike Jonze steals the show, Clooney and Ice Cube are not far behind either, and Wahlberg is endearing and effective. Only flaw is the entirely too-neat ending, which favors "Us" over "Them", but hey, we're Americans.
Rating:
Summary: Hard to Swallow
Review: This movie has some redeeming features. The reporters are comical, the action sequences are excellently staged, and the plot is a little more complex than you would at first expect. But as a Desert Storm veteran who fought in Iraq very close to where these events supposedly occured, I found the film a little hard to swallow. Events just didn't ring true. Reservists who never saw action throwing wild parties at the conclusion of the war - I doubt if it happened. My unit - which did see combat - never celebrated very much unit we returned to the United States (the end of the mission was never clear cut - most of our fighting occurred after the cease-fire). A colonel yelling at a major as if he's a recruit in basic training; soldiers in combat zones not wearing headgear; soldiers calling a superior officer by first name; a career officer risking his retirement and reputation (not to mention his life) to pursue some hairbrain plot with a group of soldiers he doesn't know from Adam; soldiers running around without the slightest hint of military discipline or training. The list goes on... Virtual none of the characters in the movie behaved like any soldier I ever knew. (Oddly enough, the Ice Cube character was probably the least unrealistic). I didn't check the credits to see if any military advisers were hired for this movie but - if they were - they certainly weren't heeded very much. Then there's the problem of geography. Somehow our intrepid stars manage to reach the Iranian border without crossing either the Euphrates or Tigris rivers. To give credit where credit is due: much of the American and Iraqi uniforms and equipment were accurate. But it wasn't enough to capture my imagination and make me forget that this was anything more than a wild David Russell fantasy. The characters were so unreal to me that I never became involved in the story.
Rating: 
Summary: The real thing
Review: Ostensibly a humorous action movie, "Three Kings" is actually a savvy and sophisticated exploration of what exactly was happening during Operation Desert Storm. For those who haven't yet figured it out, the alleged liberation of a formerly and presently undemocratic fiefdom was somewhat less important than re-stabilizing the entire region in order to safeguard the continued flow of cheap oil to the West. While most of us hopefully don't need a movie to help us out with this, it's nonetheless very refreshing to see such issues even being addressed within the medium of mainstream entertainment. Hats off to director David Russell for confronting us with the disgusting realities of this woefully under-examined war.
Rating:
Summary: excellent
Review: This film is valuable not only for the surprisingly good performances from Spike Jonze and Mark Wahlberg, but because it admirably depicts both the absurdity of war in a way which would have made Joseph heller proud, but also honestly portrays the deleterious effects which Operation Desert Storm had on the impoverished Iraqi people, who, already oppressed by a tyrant whom the U.S. had in fact supported for years, were bombed by the very army which claimed to fight for democracy, and even now die in the hundreds of thousands each year due to UN Sanctions. The Gulf War may have been uneventful for most U.S. servicemen, but it has had terrible repercussions for Iraq's kurdish and Shi'ite peoples. This film is to be commended for a refreshing and all to rare audacity, and an unflinching portrayal of the truth.
Rating:
Summary: Three Kings
Review: a great movie if you like action comedy adventure and war movies. hilarious focus on the corruptness of the military and the breech in the chain of command. an educational yet entertaining look into a very unexplored war (the gulf war).
Rating: 
Summary: an alternative war movie
Review: In a war, nobody is a winner. Chaos & madness are 2 obvious side effects of war. No matter whose sides we are in, common people is always the victim. Unlike other war movie offerings, here, good guys are not the good guys, bad guys are not the bad guys but they all are victims or opportunitists of circumstances. As the movie progresses along, the so-called 3 Kings (why 3 Kings when there is another player in the movie?) touch upon their conscience side & decide upon helping the trapped Iraqians instead of salvaging the gold. Due to the desert background, the movie could look rather bland but the director capitalises upon the opportunity to use colourful inserts (such as exploring our anatomy as the bullet hits our guts, Bart Simpson in front of the car grille) to heighten the movie to another level. The movie is unpredictable, funny at times, & comes across as a fresh movie that doesn't follow the Hollywood format bar the ending. Good casts all around & I'm proud to note that there's a New Zealander playing the Iraqian leader in the movie, which many movie goers wouldn't notice. Overall, a great effort.
Rating:
Summary: A Horrific Comedy (And A Great DVD)
Review: Man, talk about black comedy. Exploding cows, bombed babies, torture scenes, rectally-hidden maps, Spike Jonze. Three Kings is a hilarious movie, but it is also a serious movie. With A Message. But the mesage is wrapped in a very tasty, fascinating, entertaining package. And the message never seems forced, but very organic. So we have the Gulf War, which was hardly a real war. And was a war about oil, plain and simple. And we have four soldiers that wouldn't mind getting their grubby mits on a few million worth of gold. (Can you blame them?) So that's exactly what they try to do when the opportunity presents itself. David O. Russell has created a small masterpiece in Three Kings. The visual style is fascinating, the pacing shoots forward, and the acting is dead on. And it's FUNNY. And there's a MESSAGE. And just rent or buy this movie, because it should be seen. As for the DVD, it is a top notch Warner release. It features a couple extra scenes that are not just throwaway scenes. It has some great commentary, trailers, interesting featurettes, and more. Russell's video diary is quite intriguing (as well as funny--check out that sedated Mark Wahlberg and uncomfortable George Clooney). And the Jonze-produced Ice Cube acting feature is pure tongue-in-cheek fun. Highly recommended, both as a movie and as a DVD. Joel Caris
Rating:
Summary: Awesome Movie, Great DVD Package
Review: I won't spend to much time rehashing the deserved praise given to Three Kings. It is an awesome film. Not only a good war movie, but a good politcal movie dealing with the results of the Gulf War plus add some humor and some really cool filmmaking techniques. So if you liked the movie and are thinking of buying my answer is definetly. The DVD is loaded with some awesome features from deleted scenes to director commentary. It is just a great overall DVD movie and extras. And again, George Clooney is an underrated actor. Just watch him here or in the great movie Peacemaker. Clooney rules, so does this movie, so does the DVD setup.
Rating:
Summary: Thieves of Baghdad
Review: The Gulf War filled our television screens less than a decade ago. Yet, even today most people don't understand what we did there, or why. In Three Kings, a story of greed becomes one of social awakening as American soldiers come face-to-face with the war we didn't fight -- and should have. The worst thing about Three Kings is the trailer, which make it look like The Great Train Robbery. This is not a story about gold, but of war. But it's not a war film. It's a drama about people during war and the atrocities that go on -- and are allowed to continue -- because of politics. George Clooney (Out of Sight) plays a special forces major assigned to escort a television reporter after the Gulf War. When Gates (Clooney) gets wind of a story about stolen Kuwaiti gold, he becomes eager to find it. A map pulled off an Iraqi soldier shows the location of some hidden bunkers (presumably where the gold is hidden). But when Gates sets off with Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), Elgin (Ice Cube), and Vig (Spike Jonze), they discover that gold isn't the most valuable thing in Iraq. To some, like the people of the village they raid, freedom from tyranny is worth even more. As a result, questions are raised about America's involvement and the consequences of our actions. Despite some cardboard characterizations, Clooney and the others manage to portray interesting and sympathetic characters. Clooney is likeable and courageous, but seems wooden at times. Wahlberg (The Big Hit) did outstanding as Barlow. As a family man, he's the easiest to relate to. Cliff Curtis (Six Days, Seven Nights) is very good as a political prisoner set free who helps fight Saddam's army. The story itself fails to convey the real politics of what happened there, except for one or two comments that would be meaningless if you didn't already understand America's involvement with training the Kurdish resistance. The moral message of the film is lukewarm at best, failing to hit home exactly how horribly we abandoned those who would fight Saddam. Ulitmately, that's the problem with Three Kings. It tries to be more than an action movie, and it almost delivers. But the powerful statement it could have made is lost amid the action and the stupid Hollywood ending. I think this movie was good, but it could have been much better.
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