If
war is hell, then going AWOL must be a relief. Not so in Three
Kings (originally called "Spoils of War"), directed
by David O. Russell, who also developed the screenplay after
eighteen months of research about the waning days of Operation
Desert Storm. At the beginning of the film (actually shot
in the deserts of Arizona, California, and México), American
troops are rounding up Iraqi prisoners of war, one of whom
has a map sticking out of his anus. Reservists Sergeant Roy
Barlow (played by Mark Wahlberg), Sergeant Chief Elgin (played
by Ice Cube), and Private Conrad Vig (played by Spike Jonze),
who have no "taste of battle," conclude that the map locates
a storehouse of gold ingots stolen from Kuwait, and they are
eager to purloin a few bars on the pretext of returning them
to Kuwait. In comes Special Forces Major Archie Gates (played
by George Clooney), who smells the plot and wants to join
and of course lead the secret mission. Although Vig earlier
sang the tune "We three Kings of Orient are . . . , " we are
perhaps reminded that Alexandre Dumas's Three Musketeers were
four. On the trail for news is reporter Adriana Cruz (played
by Nora Dunn), who wants to film the real war, not the media
pap served up by officials, but Gates arranges to divert her
to another spot so that she will not film them replundering
Kuwaiti treasure. The dialog of the film is at a rapid clip,
as confusing as war itself, but Russell appears more interested
in alerting us to the serendipities of the plot. For openers,
Vig shoots an Iraqi in cold blood who is surrendering, and
his various maladroit antics, including racist remarks, are
excused by fellow soldiers as a function of the fact that
he never finished high school, telling us that wartime atrocities
often occur because we cannot expect every soldier (American
or otherwise) to operate by the book. Adriana tries to find
out whether Gulf War soldiers believe that the "Vietnam syndrome"
is over, a concept that they never heard of, but the film
tells us in due course that Operation Desert Storm is a macabre
Vietnam replayed. When the four jeep to an oasis where the
map indicates a cache of plunder from Kuwait, the war is supposed
to be over, and American soldiers are under orders not to
break the ceasefire. Iraqis seeking to revolt against Saddam
Hussein (under "instructions" but clearly no supplies from
President George Bush) are under the thumb of Iraqi soldiers,
who have arrested the local ringleader, telling us that Bush
was in effect responsible for the massacres of southern Iraqis
who expected the arrival of American troops to help them to
overthrow Saddam Hussein. Although the Iraqi soldiers try
to deceive the Americans at first, they ultimately help to
load ingots from a secret underground bunker into one of their
trucks, the Americans' eyes are opened to the reality of desperate
Iraqis who oppose Saddam Hussein. However, after they leave
the oasis, the Iraqi soldiers bomb the truck and jeep and
release poison gas, and most of the Americans quickly take
refuge in another underground bunker along with more Iraqi
rebels, who are controlling a fleet of limousines. However,
Barlow has been captured and is being tortured at the first
oasis by Iraqi soldier Captain Sa'id (played by Saïd Taghmaoui),
who tells him that he lost his only son in the bombing of
Baghdad and that he was trained in torture techniques by the
Americans to fight Iran. When Sa'id asks Barlow to admit why
the Americans have attacked Iraq, Barlow mouths the platitude
that Iraq was attacked because it annexed Kuwait, and Sa'id
then presents Barlow with a beverage that was the real reason
for the war-oil. Meanwhile, the three American soldiers insist
on returning to the first oasis to rescue Barlow, and the
Iraqi rebels allow them to use the limousines on condition
that they will provide safe conduct for the refugees to the
Iranian border. During the ensuing battle Vig dies. Next,
the three take on more refugees and lead the convoy to the
Iranian border so that the refugees will reach safe haven.
At this point, the American military command somehow discovers
where the AWOL soldiers are located and helicopters to the
Iran-Iraq border to apprehend the four. The three insist that
the refugees should be allowed safe passage, and they persuade
the regular army commander to do so before taking the AWOL
soldiers back to face a court martial. Adriana gets the story,
and the three are given honorable discharges thanks to her
reporting. A special revelation in the film is what happens
when a bullet hits someone: if the impact does not kill, sepsis
(pathogenic bacteria invading the bloodstream) multiplies,
and death follows if antibiotics are not available; the medical
process is displayed through two animations during the film.
Although the anti-war elements of the film should be clear
to the perceptive filmviewer, the advertising and trailer
direct audiences to yet another action film. The result is
that some may not decode the full message, audiences seem
to laugh in the wrong places, and there is not enough action
to satisfy those who want to see the death penalty enacted
on the screen. With the action and dialog at such a fast clip,
the intrigued filmviewer may be challenged to see the movie
again just to sort out the complexities, which prompt the
Political Film Society to nominate Three Kings
for an unprecedented four awards-as an exposé that raising
political consciousness about the need for greater democracy
in foreign policy decisionmaking, human rights issues involving
both Iraq and the United States, and the need to resolve conflicts
peacefully. MH
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