I distinctly remember the screening where I saw Three Kings, 10 years ago this week. It was one of those advance promotional things where the audience is composed of people who won passes from a radio station and are eager to see the movie (any movie, really) before it opens, for free. For some reason all the other local movie critics had already seen this film, so I was the only reviewer there. It was at a rundown, out-of-the-way theater that no one liked. I’d had a bad day and wasn’t feeling very chipper anyway. Then someone a couple rows behind me spilled a huge Coke just before the film started, covering the floor around my feet in stickiness.

As a critic, you try not to let external factors influence your opinion of a movie, but I’m man enough to admit (10 years after the fact, anyway) that my sour mood prevented me from really engaging with the movie. I liked it, more or less, and I wrote a moderately positive review of it, but I’ve always felt like my heart wasn’t in it. What’s more, the film itself is somewhat challenging, and my facile review clearly shows that I didn’t get it.

Sometimes it’s the movie’s fault for not being more accessible. In this case, it was all me. My bad. It’s a good thing what I say doesn’t matter.

Three Kings is about four Army officers at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War who try to steal a huge cache of gold bullion that Saddam Hussein stole from Kuwait. The men aren’t dishonest by nature; they would never contemplate such a heist back home in the States. But the topsy-turvy nature of war — war involves killing people, which is one of the things you’re supposed to never do — can interfere with a person’s moral compass. In the morass of combat, black-and-white things like “It’s not OK to steal gold just because someone else already stole it” become gray.

Further muddying the ethical waters is the soldiers’ general disregard for the local people, even the Kuwaitis, whom they’re trying to help. The dumbest of the main characters, Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze), is asked whether he was sent here to kill all Arabs, and his first answer is yes. (He has to be corrected. Not ALL Arabs, no.) When he refers to them as “dune coons,” his fellow soldiers are appalled: The more acceptable term is “towelhead,” thank you very much. Even Chief Elgin (Ice Cube), who is black, doesn’t mind the slurs as long as they don’t involve the N-word. It’s easy to see how these guys, joined by Archie Gates (George Clooney) and Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), wouldn’t think twice about stealing gold from these people, whom they clearly have little respect for.

The film’s arc is in showing how their perceptions change once they come face-to-face with Iraqi soldiers and civilians and see them as human beings. I wrote in my 1999 review that “they change their course of action [with regard to the gold-stealing] out of necessity, not because they’ve had a change of heart or learned something. They learn nothing.” This is as wrong as it can be. I’m embarrassed to have written it. There is a distinct moment when the soldiers change their plans, and it is not out of necessity. It’s because they see that if they don’t help, Iraqi soldiers will kill a handful of citizens, including women and children. The Army’s orders are not to interfere now that the war is over and a peace treaty has been signed. But they interfere anyway because it’s the morally right thing to do.

As with most decisions that are right but not easy, there is some reluctance. Gates, as their leader, is the one to make the call; Troy still just wants to take the gold and get outta there. Later, when Troy falls into the hands of an Iraqi soldier (Said Taghmaoui) and learns what it means to really have your life torn apart by war, he changes his tune.

David O. Russell, who wrote and directed the film, seems to intend it at least partially as a criticism of the way the United States handled the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm. Specifically, in the words of Archie Gates, “Bush told the people [of Iraq] to rise up against Saddam. They thought they’d have our support. They don’t. Now they’re getting slaughtered.” Once Kuwait had been liberated from the invading Iraqi forces, many people believed we should have gone into Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein, too, since he’d demonstrated he was brutal toward his own people and unafraid of invading other countries. But we didn’t, and the Iraqis who’d been expecting us to were left high and dry.

Three and a half years after Three Kings was released, U.S.-led coalition forces did invade Iraq and depose Saddam. Some people saw this as the finishing of a job we’d started back in 1991. (Others saw it as unrelated: the Persian Gulf War had been a direct response to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait, whereas the Iraq War didn’t have any specific instigation.) And Russell’s criticism of America’s post-war actions were repeated in 2003, when the U.S. military toppled Saddam but was unprepared to assist in the chaotic civilian aftermath. It’s impossible to watch Three Kings now and not think of everything that has happened since it came out — how much is different, and how much is the same.

Even if I hadn’t completely missed the boat the first time I saw the film, my perspective on it would probably be different now, simply because of the changing world events and the fact that I’m 10 years older and smarter. Still, I’m glad to at last rectify the error I made in reviewing a film that I clearly hadn’t paid enough attention to. Luckily, it’s the only poor review I ever wrote, and now I’ve fixed it. WHEW.

Three Kings

1999 Eric says: If World War II movies are about old-fashioned things like courage and valor, it makes sense that a film about the Persian Gulf War would be about ’90s values like media coverage and greed. The film tries very hard to be “about” something. Much ado is made over nearly every bullet fired, and which person, which individual human being, gets hit by it. It makes for a cool-looking film, but what’s the point of it all? In the end, the four soldiers have their plans diverted. But they change their course of action out of necessity, not because they’ve had a change of heart or learned something. They learn nothing: These are static characters, except for the one who dies. Kind of cynical, really — but maybe that’s what a ’90s film about a ’90s war should be. Grade: B-

2009 Eric says: David O. Russell’s dark action comedy Three Kings ultimately has a very simple premise. A handful of U.S. soldiers in the 1991 Persian Gulf War have little regard for the Iraqis, whether military or civilian, until they must deal with them one-on-one, whereupon they see them as individual human beings and not simply “the Iraqis.” Rather than dwelling on the huge casualties of war, this story focuses on the individual lives that are affected, with almost every bullet accounted for. The first half is glibly funny, too, satiric toward war in a M*A*S*H-like fashion, before turning serious and humane in the second half. But all of it is thoughtful and artistically crafted. Grade: B+

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Eric’s Ten-Year Itch runs on occasional Mondays, in rotation with Eric’s Time Capsule. You can visit Eric at his website, as long as you don’t steal any of his gold.

Tags: eric d. snider, george clooney, three kings