Three Kings SBIFF 2020

Three Kings Reviewed by Zane Stull.

Three Kings is a film about conflicted characters and morality. The director David O. Russel immediately shows this in the first scene. “Are we still shooting?” asks Trey Barlow, Mark Wahlberg’s character. Initially this opening line is funny, then more concerned and confusing, and finally tragic as Trey proceeds to shoot a currently peaceful Iraqi soldier.

The film story follows three soldiers during the first Gulf War, who have uncovered a map to Saddam Hussein’s stolen Kuwaiti gold. A fed-up intelligence officer, Major Archie Gates (George Clooney) takes charge of the three as they go on a hunt for the treasure through an ambiguously demilitarized war zone. The three soldiers were not part of the initial invasion force and are not used to combat. And no expectations of experiencing it now that all of the “official” fighting is over. They have many naïve ideas about what it is and what it means. Their search shows them that war isn’t the glorious patriotic expedition they’ve been sold; instead it’s a vicious brutal disaster that has no winners.

The movie was screened at the Lobero Theater in downtown Santa Barbara as a celebration of the 20^th anniversary of the film’s release. Afterwards the film’s writer and director David O. Russell talked with the Lobero audience about the relevance it still has today: war profiteering, refugee crises, Middle East conflicts that have no end, the horrific realities of war and the ignorance of Americans, citizens and soldiers, that enable our continuing resort to war as an approach to international relations. I was among the lucky students to be able to continue this discussion with Mr. Russell backstage. He is a very passionate and knowledgeable source of film making wisdom.

The movie is a thought-provoking, emotional roller coaster. From exploding cows to therapeutic character building to empathetic but shocking scenes of torture, the film packs as much heart as it does bullets. I was impressed with how it never felt like it never romanticized war or tragedy and portrayed characters that did as ignorant or idiotic. Three Kings also chose to show the realistic aftermath of being shot, depicting a disgusting, disturbing and painful ordeal that he hopes takes the idea that it is fun to shoot someone, even a terrorist. However, even as David O. Russell and this film show war as the ugly creation it is, his sense of humor snakes its way in and out of the script. His ability to do this gives this action-packed war movie some levity and keep the audience from being too sad. Russell is able to pull comedy from unusual places such as a cow being exploded by a land mine or the threat of leaving a soldier in the desert to die if he doesn’t help guide a journalist to her story.

As the film shows how and how much the “three kings’” mission and other priorities change, it effectively takes the audience along for the same kind of ride, forcing the audience to reexamine its orthodox easily-held doctrines and face the ugly and unpleasant aspects of conflict and stereotyping. As Mr. Russell emphasized in his comments after the film, he and all of us need to pay more attention, care more, and stand up for what we believe is right and call out what we see as wrong.