Three Kings is a 1999 black comedy war film written and directed by David O. Russell from a story by John Ridley. It stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze as four American soldiers on a gold heist that takes place during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq against Saddam Hussein following the end of the First Gulf War.
Three Kings was released on October 1, 1999, in the United States and on January 13, 2000 in Australia. Warner Bros. distributed the film worldwide, while Roadshow Films distributed the film in Australia and New Zealand. The film received critical acclaim and grossed $107.7 million against a $48 million budget.
Plot Following the end of the Gulf War, U.S. soldiers remaining in theatre are bored from the lack of action and throw parties at night. Major Archie Gates, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier, is trading sex for stories with a journalist, Cathy Daitch, when he is interrupted by Adriana Cruz, the television reporter he is assigned to escort.
While disarming and searching an Iraqi officer, U.S. Army Reserve Sergeant First Class Troy Barlow, his best friend Private First Class Conrad Vig, and their unit find a map in the officer's anus. Troy asks Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin to help interpret the document. Major Gates identifies it as a map of bunkers near Karbala containing gold bullion stolen from Kuwait. They decide to steal it, and Gates distracts Adriana by assigning Specialist Walter Wogeman to take her to investigate a false news tip.
They find the gold among other Kuwaiti plunder, and stumble on the interrogation of Amir Abdullah, whose wife pleads with them not to abandon the anti-Saddam dissidents. She is executed by the Iraqi Republican Guard and the group decides to free the Iraqi prisoners, triggering a firefight. They withdraw as Iraqi reinforcements arrive. Trying to evade a CS gas attack, they blunder into a minefield and get separated. Iraqi soldiers capture Troy while the others are rescued by a group of rebels who take them to their underground hideout. Conrad, Chief, and Archie agree to help the rebels and their families reach the Iranian border after they rescue Troy. Confined in the bunker in a room full of Kuwaiti cell phones, Troy calls his wife on a MicroTAC and tells her to report his location to his local Army Reserve unit. The call is cut short when he is dragged to an interrogation by Iraqi Captain Saïd.
The Americans and the rebels persuade a band of Iraqi Army deserters to sell them looted Kuwaiti luxury cars, then outfit them to resemble Saddam's entourage. The phony convoy scares away the bunker's defenders and Troy is freed. Saïd is spared, and they find more Shi'ite dissidents held in a dungeon. Iraqi soldiers return before they can depart, and in the ensuing firefight they kill Conrad and wound Troy with a punctured lung. Archie radios Walter and Adriana to arrange transport for the dissidents while hapless American officers in the camp try to locate the trio after the message from Troy's wife arrives. Every rebel is given a bar of gold, and the Americans bury the rest before the convoy arrives.
The convoy carries the dissidents to the Iranian border, where the three Americans intend to escort the rebels across to protect them from the Iraqi border guards. American officers intervene and arrest the trio while the rebels are recaptured. Archie offers the buried gold to the American officers in exchange for letting the refugees through. The commanding officer agrees to assisting the rebels get into Iran, but insists the charges of being absent without leave and disobeying orders will result in a courts-martial of Archie, Troy, and Chief.
The epilogue reveals the three surviving soldiers were cleared of the charges and honorably discharged because of Adriana's reporting. Archie becomes a military adviser for Hollywood action films, Chief leaves his airport job to work with Archie, and Troy returns to his wife and baby to run his own carpet store. The stolen gold is returned to Kuwait, who claim a small amount is still missing.
Cast George Clooney as Major Archie Gates A career U.S. Army Special Forces officer close to retirement, who is disillusioned with the war. Mark Wahlberg as Sergeant First Class Troy Barlow An office worker with a wife and baby daughter at home. He wears the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations patch and identifies himself as a Civil Affairs Reservist. Ice Cube as Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin An airline baggage handler from Detroit who believes he is protected by a ring of "Jesus-fire", also wears the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations patch. Spike Jonze as Private First Class Conrad Vig A jobless, semi-literate soldier from a group home in Dallas who idolizes Troy; also wears the U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations patch. Nora Dunn as Adriana Cruz A tough cable news correspondent who is determined to get a good story. Jamie Kennedy as Specialist Walter Wogeman A bumbling soldier whom Archie uses to distract Adriana. Mykelti Williamson as Colonel Ron Horn Archie's superior officer, who discovers the plan to steal the gold. Cliff Curtis as Amir Abdullah A Shi'ite Iraqi rebel who has been captured by Saddam's troops. Educated in the U.S. at Bowling Green State University, he was an entrepreneur in Baghdad, running several cafes before they were destroyed by Coalition bombs. Saïd Taghmaoui as Captain Saïd An Iraqi interrogator who tortures Barlow with electric shocks after he is captured. Judy Greer as Cathy Daitch A journalist competing with Adriana who has sex with Archie early in the film. Liz Stauber as Debbie Barlow, Troy's wife Holt McCallany as Captain Doug Van Meter Troy's superior officer, an obstreperous stickler for the rules. Alia Shawkat as Amir's daughter. Jim Gaffigan as Cuts Troy's cuff soldier Fahim Fazli as Refugee
Production Three Kings was filmed in the deserts of Casa Grande, Arizona, California and Mexico, with many of the extras played by actual Iraqi refugees. According to David O. Russell, two of the cast members had "personally defaced 300 murals of Saddam." After one of the military advisers to the film died during production, Russell said the death was "perhaps due to chemicals he was exposed to in the Gulf."
Script controversy Former stand-up comic John Ridley had originally written the screenplay, then titled Spoils of War, as an experiment to see how fast he could write and sell a film. The writing took him seven days, and Warner Bros. bought the script 18 days later. When the studio showed a list of their purchased scripts to Russell, the one-sentence description of Spoils of War, "heist set in the Gulf War", appealed to him. Although Russell claimed he never read Ridley's script, so as not "to pollute my own idea", he admits that "John gets credit where it's due. The germ of the idea that I took was his." Ridley maintains that Russell shut him out of the process, saying: "I never heard a word while he was shooting the movie. Never saw any of the script changes. And then finally, a year later, I get a copy of the script, and my name isn't even on it." Although Warner Bros. worked out a deal to give Ridley a "story by" credit, Ridley remains unhappy with the experience, and has blocked Russell's efforts to publish the Three Kings screenplay in book form.
Casting Russell penned the script with several actors in mind. Although Spike Jonze had never acted in a film before, Russell wrote the part of Conrad Vig specifically for him, and the two practised Conrad's Southern accent over the phone while Jonze directed his first feature film, Being John Malkovich. Although Russell had to convince a wary Warner Bros. to cast an inexperienced actor in such a large role, he eventually won out. Russell said Jonze's lack of previous acting work was beneficial to the film, citing the "chaos that a nonactor brings to the set...he really shakes things up."
Co-star George Clooney also expressed initial reservations about the choice of Jonze. "It's always worrisome when somebody says, 'I got a friend,' and you've never heard of them. But within five minutes of meeting Spike, you just go, 'Oh, he's perfect for the part.'"
The part of Archie Gates was originally planned for Clint Eastwood, but Russell decided to rewrite it as a younger character. George Clooney eventually saw a copy of the script and was "blown away" by it. When he heard the part was being re-written, he jumped at the chance to get involved. At this point in Clooney's career, he was best known for his role as the handsome Dr. Doug Ross on the popular television drama ER. Clooney was ready to pursue a role in film. Unfortunately, Russell seemed unwilling to cast Clooney in the role. Persistent, Clooney sent a humorously self-deprecating letter signed "George Clooney, TV actor" to Russell asking for the part, and showed up at Russell's New York City apartment to plead his case. Russell still wasn't satisfied that Clooney could portray the character. He instead convinced Nicolas Cage to play the role. However, when Cage became unavailable after being cast in Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead, Russell gave the part to Clooney. Russell later stated that Clooney "was meant to play the part."
Many of the Iraqi roles were played by actual Iraqi refugees in the United States.
Film techniques Much to the chagrin of Warner Bros., Russell decided to use a number of experimental cinematic techniques in the film. Handheld cameras and Steadicam shots were used to give the film a journalistic feel. Russell shot a majority of the film on Ektachrome transparency stock that was cross-processed in colour negative chemicals, to reproduce "the odd colour of the newspaper images [of the Gulf War]." Though the process produced a unique quality and look to the film, it was exceedingly unreliable to develop, and many film labs would not provide insurance for the transparency stock if it did not develop properly. Russell feared that the scenes would need to be reshot until finally a lab was found that would develop the transparency stock in the negative chemicals. The opening was shot on conventional negative stock and bleach bypassed to give a deep black and high contrast look. Some interior shots were also filmed on conventional negative stock and processed normally. Russell also credited the realism of the firefights to the film's cinematographer, Newton Thomas Sigel, who had shot several documentaries on South American civil wars, saying "he knew what it was like to be in that kind of world."
All of the explosions in the movie were filmed in one shot, as opposed to a typical film where each would have been covered by multiple cameras. Russell explained, "to me that's more real. The car's blowing up on this guy, and we just park the camera. Of course the producer says, 'we gotta run three cameras!' But if I cut three ways, then it just looks like an action picture." Russell also had the sound post-production team tone down the sounds of gunfire, saying he didn't want to "Bruce Willis-ize" the film." One frequently noted shot in the film is an image of a bullet piercing a number of internal organs, releasing bile into the abdominal cavity, used when Gates is describing sepsis as the effect of a gunshot wound. This internal camera is again used when SFC Barlow is shot in the torso and his chest begins to fill with air, crushing his lung. Both of these scenes were inspired by Russell asking an emergency room doctor friend "What's the weirdest wound you've ever seen?" It also erupted a minor controversy, when Russell began to joke around that the gunshots were fired into a real corpse; a statement everyone vehemently denied later.
Conflicts