David O Russell (1999)

This satirical comedy-drama, about a gold heist that takes place at the end of the 1991 Gulf War, is made with tremendous panache.  Russell, whose third feature it was, often seems too pleased with the brilliant visual dynamism.  In juxtaposition to the startling images of warfare and bloodshed that he’s describing, that self-satisfaction can be jarring but Three Kings is an impressive piece of work; and the élan of the film-making is such that Russell’s high spirits are often infectious.  (The cinematographer was Newton Thomas Sigel, the editing by Robert K Lambert.)  According to Wikipedia, there’s still argument about the authorship of the screenplay – between Russell, who got the credit, and John Ridley, who gave him at least the story; but there’s no denying that it’s a clever piece of plotting, with a good deal of grimly witty dialogue.   Four American soldiers remove a piece of paper from the backside of an Iraqi prisoner of war and find that it’s a map to bunkers where Saddam Hussein has stashed gold stolen from Kuwait.  They go after the money and (in a nod to Kelly’s Heroes rather than The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) soon find it.  The Americans’ motives are gradually complicated as mercenary impulses get compromised by humanitarian ones.

George Clooney is superb as the senior soldier, Major Archie Gates:  he goes a long way into the character.  Clooney is charismatic or closed off as the occasion demands – when Archie Gates is trying to get his own way, Clooney fixes the opposition with a penetrating expression in his eyes that’s unarguable.  He’s equally skilled at making himself opaque to suppress difficult thoughts.  Clooney gets decent support from Ice Cube, Spike Jonze and Mark Wahlberg.  There’s a gripping, well-written sequence in which the Wahlberg character is interrogated and tortured by a group of Iraqis led by Saïd Taghmaoui (who’s excellent).   Nora Dunn’s portrait of a television journalist who wants a good story at all costs has verve but is relatively crude – so is the writing of this character.  Russell’s direction gives the story a disorienting, relentless rhythm – that in turn gives an edge and immediacy to the crazy behaviours of the people on screen.   There’s an effective score by Carter Burwell and the American pop classics we hear on a jeep radio – The Beach Boys’ ‘I Get Around’, Chicago’s ‘If You Leave Me Now’ – are, in this desert setting, both bizarre and touching.

13 August 2011