In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The movies about three soldiers George Clooney Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube who basically start out as greedy military men trying to get a piece of pie for themselves and end up becoming Heroes who helped these group of people out interesting story that you definitely won't see again

Its virtue - a different perspective about war. about war in Gulf especially. more realistic, precise and convincing. different by the heroic manner to present the conflict, it seems be just a story about greed, dreams, duty, help and generosity. and, maybe, about sacrifice.and this fact is the basic motif for see it. sure, the subject is not original. but , more than a film of a story or of its actors, "Three Kings" has the gift to be a film about ordinary people in difficult situation. and this does it a real special movie.

At the end of the Gulf War, 4 soldiers acquire a map from the most unlikely of places and discover that this map may contain the whereabouts of some hidden gold close to one of their bases. The 4 men set out on a journey to find the gold, but this is less than straight forward and the 4 men encounter both danger and some unexpected assistance along the way.I haven't read John Ridley's novel (upon which this film is based), but it seems that Russell's has given Three Kings a very tongue-in-cheek feel - this is perfectly fine with me as I'll always prefer a serious film that's laced with humour as opposed to one that is deadly serious throughout its running time. The humorous tone that Russell adopts through most of the film serves it well and the camaraderie is top-notch between the likes of Clooney, Wahlberg and Ice Cube. Although I like serious films with humour thrown in I do think that filmmakers should be careful about how much humour is injected into a film - using war as a backdrop gives the film serious undertones and these undertones shouldn't be forgotten. I personally felt Russell may have overdone things slightly here, but I definitely felt it was a case of more being right than wrong. The soldier's camaraderie is a major strength and it's therefore a shame that Russell makes very little attempt to develop their characters - there is a little insight into Wahlberg's characters life, but nothing is afforded to any of the other characters. Had their characters been developed a little more then it probably would have made it easier to invest in them as people.Despite the picture having a generally humorous tone, Russell still manages to deliver the goods when it's time to get serious. The film has a very realistic feel to it which is probably helped by the fact that some real-life refugees were used in the film's production. I also noted that Mark Wahlberg was actually electrocuted in the scene where he is being tortured - you can't ask for much more realism than that!!! This is perhaps the reason that the film feels so realistic and despite seeming silly at times Russell also remembers to give it a sense of realism as well.Although war and politics play a part in Three Kings it is a film that is more about human values and common decency and whilst it does have some minor weaknesses its many strengths more than outweigh these weaknesses.

The film follows Archie Gates (George Clooney), Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) and Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) as they look for a stash of gold after finding a secret map lodged in a prisoner of war's anus – the premise is removed from reality to an extent where it loses credibility as both a war film and a piece of drama. The synopsis on the Blu-Ray case says that Three Kings is 'a surreal comedy and a powerful drama of human compassion'. That is the problem with the film, it strives to be two things at once and ultimately fails in succeeding at either.The foundations of its trite, formulaic narrative are laid in the film's early moments. Gates stresses that once they get their gold from the bunker they're getting straight out of there, but naturally their swift plan goes awry when the men's conscience throw them into a union with the noble Iraqi rebels and a bloody conflict with Saddam Hussein's army. This is second-rate Rambo territory, yet it gets over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.There are moments of style and surrealism, for example there are several scenes that show what happens to one's innards when a bullet passes through them, the effects are terrifically grisly and macabre. The first gunfight is also in a strange, choppy slow motion that's silent apart from loud, single gunshots. However, when the tension, of which there is some I admit, is broken by the sound of American and Iraqi rifles, there is a palpable sense of safety amongst the Americans; despite the overwhelming numbers of Hussein's troops, I never felt that the Three Kings were truly in any danger. Even when Troy is captured and subjected to moments of nasty torture, I wasn't particularly bothered because I knew he'd be rescued. It is Troy's capture that, with a few exceptions, signals the steady decline of the film.Jean Baudrillard said that 'the Gulf War did not take place', referring to how the United States-led coalition engaged in a war of safe distances with vastly superior technology. Baudrillard also believed that the media coverage was mere simulacrum, a sanitised recreation of events that ignored Iraqi suffering and championed US objectives. Seasoned journalist Adriana Cruz (Nora Dunn) is a personification of this, she's depicted as being self-centred and interested only in her career rather than her subject. There's a scene where she cries at the sight of oil slathered animals, however it's quite apparent that she's really mourning the absence of a good story.Baudrillard's notions are corroborated in exchanges between Troy and Iraqi Captain Said (Said Taghmaoui) that serve as the film's main moments of war moralising. With Troy bound to a chair and wired with electric cables, Said tells him that his son died in the bombing of Baghdad, asking Troy how he'd feel if his daughter was killed in similar circumstances, a thought that he acknowledges as sheer hypothesis 'Very nice for you bro, she's safe in Arizona without the bombs and concrete'. The impact of this scene is intensified by cutaway clips that visualise their dialogue of war and death; despite Said's torture of Troy, the scene highlights fundamental similarities between the two men, giving Said humanity. Indeed, the film succeeds in giving many of the Iraqi characters a sense of identity. Despite of all this, I felt the film was following the well trodden path of Hollywood war moralising in a rather hackneyed manner.After what feels longer than 110 minutes, the film confirms just how formulaic it is when its farcical story is wrapped up so very neatly, it sucks out any modicum of credibility that may have remained. What's left is a film that is by no means terrible but a rather mediocre affair with the odd flash of political commentary and explosive spectacle that has been done better elsewhere. I shouldn't be too surprised by its mediocrity, after all who talks about Three Kings anymore? It certainly hasn't entered the pantheon of great war films, it didn't make the impact that The Hurt Locker did. Many would forget that the director of Silver Linings Playbook (okay) and American Hustle (hideously overrated) once made a war film, and I may do too.64%www.hawkensian.com