Member review

War films often have a certain way of being shot. Get some horrific footage of battle, pummel home a specific message and either hire a couple of well-known superstars or order the entire cast from the ‘Yellow Pages’. I’m not knocking war films in any way, to be honest I prefer this particular formula as the final result is (usually) satisfactory. But ‘Three Kings’ is a lot different. With no real conflict (although there wasn’t much in this particular war), a message of greed throughout, incredibly different cinematography and a supporting role played by a rapper, I’m not entirely sure what to think about this film. The film starts with text, telling us that any trickery used is for the purpose of helping us to experience the film more, getting my hopes up, huge blunder. For starters, how is watching something in terribly crummy slow motion or in red enhancing the viewer’s experience? It’s crippling the viewer’s experience if anything, hardly special effects, and that’s taking into account the age of this film. The story then begins and we see all of the soldiers celebrating the end of the Kuwait war. But wait a minute, didn’t they advertise this as being a war film? That aside, maybe I am being over-zealous but a war film not actually having anything to really do with the war annoyed me slightly. We then meet the characters, the main ones played by Mark Walhberg who plays an average ‘hero’, George Clooney who plays a player/Major and Ice Cube who’s portraying a ‘religious’ soldier, which also annoyed me. Ice Cube claims to be protected by a ‘Ring Of Jesus Fire’, which I took the liberty of googling and guess what? It doesn’t actually exist, a really poor representation of religion. If he was a Christian/Muslim whatever it would be better but following a religion made up by the scriptwriter, it’s ridiculous really. We also get to meet of oddballs, who are played for comedic effect but degrade the film even more at the attempt at comedy. They honestly wouldn’t be allowed to join the army which makes me think, is this a parody? But after a while the film starts rolling and we begin to see the plot. Three soldiers find a map (In an Arab’s rear end, need I say more?) with Saddam’s gold plotted on it. They plot to go and steal this gold but when executing the plan they realise that the locals may need their help, putting them in an awkward situation. This review may seem very hostile towards the film but once all the rubbish associated with the beginning leaves, we are left with a more enjoyable film. Apart from the dodgy beginning, the main problem is that we never get to really know the characters, so when certain events happened, I didn’t feel very emotionally attached. And also the fact that the characters we don’t know very well, or particularly like, are committing a selfish act and we’re meant to root for them? It’s a bit too neat for my liking. So how do I conclude, what do I think about this film? I challenge you to watch it, because you may really like it, or not in my case.