What did you think of "Three Kings"?   Good 67% 99   Bad 31% 46   Somewhere in between 2% 3 Total Votes   148

Verdict: A sardonic, rock-'em, sock-'em Gulf War flick.

Details: Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube. Written and directed by David Russell. Rated R for graphic war violence, profanity and sexuality. 1 hour, 51 minutes.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: "Three Kings" is set in the war of the stretch limos.

Far from the mostly chin-up heroism of "Saving Private Ryan," this cynical, intentionally ragged movie about the Persian Gulf War finds U.S. soldiers commandeering Saddam Hussein's pilfered luxury cars amid their renegade quest to grab stolen Kuwaiti gold. It's not so much about American bravery as political savagery.

Here, George and Bush are dirty words. A lot of the bitter fighting is between jaded journalists jockeying for the hottest story. Never mind that the oil fields are brightly burning and that Iranian wildlife is paralyzed and dying in thick, black goo. That was yesterday's news.

With all its kicky visual posing and dark humor, "Three Kings" hankers to be the next war-is-freaky "Apocalypse Now," the next insanity-reigns "From Dusk Till Dawn," the next violence-as-art "The Matrix."

It's not nearly any of those. But "Three Kings" does have juice. George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube portray three ordinary, bored American soldiers stuck in a base camp in desert-strewn Iraq while waiting out the high-tech war's inevitable conclusion. They find a map on an Iraqi prisoner — let's just say it's hidden on his person — that apparently will lead them to Saddam's stash of stolen Kuwaiti gold bullion worth billions.

They go AWOL in a Humvee into Iraqi territory to find their shiny treasure. And, in a sort of "The Magnificent Seven" twist, come face to face with anti-Saddam civilians being rounded up, tortured and executed by Iraqi soldiers. In this movie's mindset, these are the same civilians President Bush encouraged to rise up against Saddam, only to be left behind after America's chest-beating victory.

"Three Kings" isn't entirely the contrived rogues-turned-heroes story you've seen in "Gunga Din" or "The Dirty Dozen." Writer/director David Russell ("Spanking the Monkey," "Flirting with Disaster") would rather rock the casbah. Keeping a heavy political hand on the script, Russell jump-starts the soundtrack with pop-heavy radio tunes and pumps the visuals with freewheeling camera pans and zooms. The images are pointed and sometimes disturbing. Bullet trajectories become slow, jerky paths to pain. How often do you witness what happens inside somebody who's taken a slug in the gut?

All three stars are fairly adept at the unskilled bravura of "Three Kings." Clooney plays Special Forces Capt. Archie Gates with the trademark icy coolness that worked so well in last year's "Out of Sight." As Sgt. Troy Barlow, a young, impressionable Army Reserve soldier plucked from his family to wage the good fight, Wahlberg evokes a credible mix of nerve and naivete. And as Staff Sgt. Chief Elgin, an airport baggage handler in Detroit when he's not toting military firearms, Ice Cube subtly bolsters the group's emerging sense of morality.

Underscoring the film's persistent, crazed comic relief, Nora Dunn, as a driven TV journalist, Jamie Kennedy ("Scream"), as her wacked-out military escort, and Spike Jonze, as an unschooled redneck private, are all believably goofy.

This Gulf War is combat littered with human suffering and the immense booty of Kuwait — cell phones, coffee makers, jewels, gold bars and those long, long limos.

What is war good for? In the unkept promises so bitterly displayed in "Three Kings," absolutely nothing.

— Bob Longino, Cox News Service

[an error occurred while processing this directive]