Herald rating: ****
Running time: 115 mins
In stores: Today
Review: Ewan McDoanld
It's 1991; the Gulf War has just ended. Three US soldiers find a dead Iraqi with a piece of paper stuck in a highly classified place.
When they fish it out, they have a map showing where Saddam Hussein's
boys buried the gold looted from Kuwait. The GIs (Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze) and Sergeant Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) decide to steal the treasure, as soon as they can get rid of the TV reporter (Nora Dunn) he's showing around the desert.
Around about now you're expecting your typical Hollywood war flick but writer-director David O. Russell, Clooney and mates are going to surprise. This is not CNN, not Our Brave Yankee Lads whuppin' Saddam's Spawn of the Devil.
Three Kings is a graphic, turbulent, politicised story. There's supposed to be a truce, so Saddam's men have stopped shooting at Americans and are slaughtering unhappy locals who were expecting him to be overthrown. Iraqis are killing Iraqis while American peacemakers/gold thieves are making a profit. The reporter courts both sides because this is, after all, television's war. There are odd spots of humour.
Clooney is excellent: he had to fight for this role, had to lead the battle to get the movie made because it challenges so many Middle American beliefs, so many Hollywood "truths."
And do not adjust your set. This movie is shot in bleached desert white rather than the sunny desert island look we're used to.
