Three Kings

Three Kings (1999) is set at the end of the Gulf War. The ceasefire has been declared, four American soldiers find a map on an Iraqi prisoner showing where gold stolen from Kuwait is hidden, and they go to get it. What they find on the way is not what they expected: Iraqi civilians whom America called to rise up and then abandoned. Its political stance was unusual for 1999. It deals directly with how the war was ended and with the people left alone after being urged to revolt, and it does not construct the American soldier as a hero. David O. Russell directed. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze star. The production was contentious. Russell and Clooney clashed seriously on set and it reached a physical fight; both have spoken about it openly over the years. Clooney never worked with Russell again. The look is its distinguishing quality: deliberately overexposed, washed out and grainy, achieved by putting the film through a special process. It runs 114 minutes. Good for: war satire, political action, and the formal nerve of the nineties. Less good for: the shifts between comedy and violence are abrupt. Most of the Iraqi characters serve the Americans' moral development. The torture scene is heavy.