With Iraq on everyone’s mind, it seemed like a good time to take another look at THREE KINGS, one of the few Hollywood movies about the first Gulf War, and certainly the only one I’ve seen that took a complex look at the subject. When it first came out in 1999 - a great year for mainstream movies that also saw the release of THE MATRIX, AMERICAN BEAUTY, FIGHT CLUB, THE SIXTH SENSE, and SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER, & UNCUT - I really dug the movie. It was exciting, funny, scary, and had a message to boot. Four years later, I feel the same way, though my understanding of the film has changed and my appreciation of it has deepened. And, for good or bad, it’s still a very relevant picture.

The story is set at the end of the (first) Gulf War, after the ceasefire agreement between the US and Iraq. Sergeant Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) and Private Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) discover a map concealed inside a captured Iraqi soldier’s ass. Soon-to-be-retired Major Archie Gates (George Clooney), thinks the map shows the location of Kuwaiti bullion, stolen by the Iraqis in the war. Along with Chief Elgin (Ice Cube), our heroes take off for the town on the map where the gold appears to be hidden.

But the movie is not about the gold, which is quickly pushed to the background, or the main characters, or even the antiwar statement so typically associated with it. While THREE KINGS does feature elements against the Gulf War, they feature just as many that are for war. Any movie that features guys throwing explosive Nerf balls at helicopters and diving out of the way of slo-mo flaming wreckage can’t be completely against war. If anything, the movie was a call for a further action in Iraq. We see the brutal side of war - torture, murder, graphic representations of bullet wounds - and also the darkly funny side of it - like the way Barlow can order Vig to unroll the smelly map with only one rubber glove because he outranks him. David O’ Russell’s feisty direction allows the battles to be seen as exciting entertainment, but he doesn’t shy away from the repercussions either; slowing down his excitable camera to focus on the story’s numerous casualties. The only things Russell speaks strongly against, working from his own script and story by John Ridley, is the bureaucratic American army - portrayed by several high ranking officers who sit around yelling and looking at maps while the tanks headed to the AWOL soldiers they are looking for drive off right under their noses.

As for those looking to the movie as proof of Iraqi ruthlessness, there is no question that Sadaam’s soldiers kill and intimidate innocent civilians, and are extremely skilled at hiding things from the Americans. But the movie goes to great lengths to prove that not all Iraqis were ruthless killers; in one beautiful scene, the ignorant Vig talks with some Iraqi refugees and learns they are fighting for their lives so they can go back to their chosen profession: hair styling. THREE KINGS is a slap in the face of less ambitious projects that present stereotyped, faceless villains. The most complex character is not an American, it’s an Iraqi soldier played by Said Taghmaoui, who tortures Wahlberg’s character in several impressive scenes. While he electrocutes Barlow, he explains that he - like Barlow - only joined the army to provide for his family; a family that was later destroyed by American bombs. When Barlow rationalizes American action he sounds hypocritical, implying that we rescued Kuwait because it was rich and abandoned the rest of Iraq because they were poor.

THREE KINGS winds up being an oddly objective look at the Gulf War, not to mention a brutally exciting war film filled with incredible imagery like Clooney’s Gates contemplating a decision he has made while the clouds overhead zoom by at impossible speed. It entertains you and pushes you to ponder the very mindset that allowed you to be entertained. Since we’ve gotten a sequel to the war I think it’s only fair we let Russell shoot a sequel to THREE KINGS about it.