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Three
Kings
viewed June 3, 2000 on VHS
Full
Details
The second time around was not as stunning as the
first. I was more sensitive to a self-conscious
hipness to the whole endeavor that made the cutting-edge
social criticism feel more like liberal
self-righteousness. Nonetheless the energy and
freshness that blew me away the first time were still
there, the acting all-around is still great, the absurd
moments of the film are still hilarious (though I cite
the couple of sequences inolving Nerf footballs as
examples of excess) while the violence is unpredictable
and intense. The interrogation of Mark Wahlberg by
the former CIA trainee turned Saddam officer is the real
heart of what's great about this movie: the dialogue is
urgent, ironic and peppered with a roughhewn, physical
wit ("You want your oil, my main man? You got
your oil, down your fucking throat").
viewed October 23, 1999 at UA Metro Center Colma
To safely make it to my double feature after exiting
Music of the Heart,
I took a detour -- a much-needed one at that -- to the
men's room, then bought an overpriced medium popcorn
and medium coke (I love how they get you with the "are
you sure you wouldn't like a medium instead of a small,
sir?" with a voice that inflects wise assurance).
Having paid my dues for sneaking into two movies, I
took my deserved seat in the middle aisle and tried
to keep my eyes on the trivia slide show while listening
to a girl a couple rows ahead tell her friends how working
at Longs Drugs was different from her days at Chico
State ("I, like, get so tired sometimes").
The movie was terrific, though I couldn't help but be
annoyed by the presence of the audience around me during
more than a few moments.
The audience's reaction to certain events during the
film could more or less summarize the feelings of
Americans towards Iraqis and all Arabs. I had the
guy behind me reacting to images of the Iraqi soldiers getting shot
with "Blam!" "Wow" and "Gotcha
motherfucker!" Later when a bomb explosion
collapses a building on the sleeping infant child of an
Iraqi soldier a collective gasp rippled through the
theater. When an amazing camera shot follows a
bullet's deadly trail into the chest cavity of a
soldier, showing bodily fluids oozing from punctured
organs, the girl in front of me squealed,
"Gross!" in stark contrast to her earlier
exclamation of "Oh my God! I want that!" at
the sight of dozens of stolen Rolex watches hidden in
the Iraqi bunker. So we have pro-war, anti-war,
pro-materialism and anti-gross: presidential candidates
take note of the state of mind of our youth.
I left the movie in utter awe of what I perceived to
be the stunningly acute understanding of the American
invasion in Iraq: what it was all about, what the
soldiers felt they were doing, and the biggest payoff
for me, what the Iraqis, both Saddam's soldiers and the
ordinary townspeople, felt about the whole mess.
It was only later that I received a reality check;
my girlfriend called me on one assumption I had made
purely on the basis of viewing the film -- that most
Iraqis wanted America to liberate them from Saddam,
waiting in vain for that time to come. Who
knows what the Iraqis really feel -- like the main Iraqi
resistance leader in the film, they probably don't care
who's in charge as long as they can put up their hotels
and other businesses, and then be able to buy a Rolex or
Cadillac or other global success symbol.
This movie knows more about the Gulf War than I ever cared
to, back when I tuned out the whole episode as one of
Bush's P.R. ploys. I was disgusted then by how
people were using it as
a pathetic excuse for patriotism, and turned my back on
the whole mess, but watching this
movie I realized that the best social criticism may not
be disgusted ignorance to but intimate knowledge of the
problem. This movie is, or at least has the
appearance of being, immensely smart and
culture-conscious. Comparing it to the other
consumer candy that comes out of Hollywood, I'll take
it.
Read
Roger Ebert's praise of this film
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