Common Sense Note
Parents need to know that this film is unsparing in the violence of the battlefield, with soldiers, civilians, mothers, and children dying in gunfire and RPG attacks. Several special-effects scenes actually go within a human body to demonstrate, classroom-lecture style, the damage that bullets do. There is also one rather gratuitous sex scene early on. The depiction of the coalition troops sent to liberate Kuwait is cynical, to put it lightly. Families who are strong Bush Jr./Sr. supporters will either yell at the screen, decide George Clooney isn't all that handsome anymore, or turn it off. Other families may cheer at the film's brazenness.
Families can talk about the film's politics and the way the main characters turn from glorified looters into humanitarians. While Saddam Hussein is never discussed as more than a despicable warlord (hated and feared by even his own legions), it's stated that the Iraqi people, on both sides, are ordinary people involved in a complicated struggle for power and survival that most Americans -- with mainly money and oil on their minds -- can't/won't/don't comprehend. The filmmakers find fault with the George Bush government for not supporting the anti-Saddam resistance in 1991. Families in Bush-supporting households can debate whether this is a fair charge or not, especially considering that another President Bush invaded the country to charge wholesale after Saddam ten years later. Why wasn't George Clooney cheering then?
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Charles Cassady, Jr.
THREE KINGS was filmmaker David O'Russell's scorpion-stingingly cynical take on the American/Coalition military action Operation Desert Storm. It's set in 1991, when largely U.S. forces beat Saddam Hussein's army, which had invaded neighborhood Kuwait. Watched today, this gains an extra dimension from the 2003 "Operation Iraqi Freedom" war. Kids who have lived with the controversial second Gulf War might be a little confused about the issues that the 1999 film raises. The gore, action, dark humor, and suggestions that "Americans just don't get it" are still pretty applicable, in varying degrees.
You might have to remind yourselves that in 1991 the U.S. troops, under the first President George Bush, chased Saddam's army back across the Kuwaiti border, then halted. This caused some complaints about America abandoning the homegrown Iraqi freedom movement once the Kuwaiti oil wells were secure. In Three Kings Saddam Hussein's cease-fire surrender brings jubilation to U.S. forces, who act like frat guys on Spring Break. During high-fives, beer showers, and harassing some Arabs they take prisoner just for a news-broadcast photo opportunity, soldiers find a map clenched between the buttocks of a high-ranking captive Iraqi.
If it was important enough to hide in a booty, reasons Special Forces Capt. Archie Gates (George Clooney), it must show where real booty is stashed, probably stolen Kuwaiti gold. Nearing military-retirement age and long past any idealism, Gates forms a small raiding-party to venture past the cease-fire lines to steal the ingots. Going along on the illegal mission are three reservists (Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, < a href=" http://www.commonsensemedia.org/reviews/Spike-Jonze">Spike Jonze), not eager to return to their dead-end civilian jobs empty-handed.
Gates is correct about the gold, and Saddam's Republican Guard are busy violently crushing anti-Baghdad uprisings among their own people. They barely care about some bandit Americans in their midst, recognizing the U.S. soldiers just want to loot, the same way the Iraqis looted Kuwait. But Gates and his men are sickened by the sight of women, children, and wounded being terrorized. Instead of making a clean getaway they do what the Bush Administration did not; open fire to help the oppressed Iraqi rebels. For the rest of the movie these accidental freedom-fighters have to race, shoot, and deal their way to safety.
The American characters say lines like "The war is over, I don't know what the f--k it was about," and "You guys call America the Great Satan, right?" All while generally exhibiting the sort of self-serving, stupid, and insensitive actions that have given the U.S. a bad name in the Arab-Islamic world. Much criticism is put into the mouth of an otherwise villainous character, an Iraqi military father whose wife was maimed and whose son was killed in U.S. bombing targeted at Saddam. He tortures one of Gates' comrades using what he says was the whole objective of U.S. meddling in Mideast politics: oil.
There is a strong resemblance between Three Kings and Kelly's Heroes, a 1970 WWII action-comedy with Clint Eastwood leading a team of Allied soldiers to steal some of Hitler's riches from a bank behind enemy lines. That one of Kelly's heroes is a tank-riding 1960s hippie, inexplicably 25 years ahead of his time, demonstrates the Vietnam-era sentiment and nihilism: G.I.'s who steal and pillage are just doing on a petty scale the crimes that their superiors in the Pentagon or the Third Reich or Baghdad commit globally.
Of course, both movies demonstrate an unromantic, war-is-hell idea underneath the shtick. You might watch Kelly's Heroes, which originally got the equivalent of a PG rating, with or instead of Three Kings and ask kids which one has stood the test of time. And if you enjoy George Clooney as a smooth criminal mastermind without the political soapbox, there are his Ocean's 11 romps.
Rate It!
| Content | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CS | adults | kids | ||
Sexual ContentA brief early scene of Archie having sex with a young news associate, she in a bra and panties, he almost fully clothed. Later talk about sex (mostly in the context of ascending the ranks in broadcast journalism). |
 |
|||
ViolenceUnsparing war violence and many deaths. Includes severe depiction (using a clinical X-ray view) of what happens when bullets tear through human tissues. People are shot through the head in the closeup, including a mother (whose child grieves by the body). A little boy sniper is blown up by a tank shell. Landmines explode further vehicles. A man in tortured with electric shocks. There's some closeup battlefield surgery. |
 |
|||
LanguagePretty extreme, including subtitled f-words and s-words courtesy of the Iraqis. |
|
|||
Message |
|
|||
Social BehaviorThe American troops in general use racist language directed particularly at Arabs and behave like kill-crazy party monsters (at least with the announcement of the war's "ending"). The "heroes" are initially lawless rogues intent on robbery and making themselves rich, but they undergo a moral transformation and begin to appreciate that the Iraqi resistance (and even some of the bad guys) are real people involved in a serious moral struggle. Ultimately the main characters turn into saviors, but very flawed ones. The one female character of consequence is a pushy and vindictive news reporter, but she too shows some signs of lessons learned. |
 |
|||
CommercialismFancy motorcars on display, with much talk of the Lexus Infinity. References to cultural media icons, including Bart Simpson and Michael Jackson, and popular music. Usually it's ironic commentary, not a sales pitch. Usually. |
|
|||
Drug/Alcohol/TobaccoSocial drinking and partying after the U.S. victory. |
|
|||
