Three Kings

Bomb Rating: 

This film looks like it was shot by my grandmother.

Notice the number in the title of this movie: Three. Now count the number of characters who run off to try to steal some gold from Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War: Four. To quote an idiot convenience store clerk I once gave back four cents in change to: That's one more than three. In other words, for the title of this film to have any real significance, it has to lose one of the soldiers.

If you just look at the obvious, the three people in the poster are George Clooney, who plays Special Forces Captain Archie Gates, Mark Wahlberg, who plays U.S. Army Sergeant Troy Barlow, and Ice Cube, who plays Staff Sergeant Chief Elgin. That leaves Private Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze) to get killed somewhere. Probably what director David O. Russell should have done was put the red security guard suit from Star Trek on Jonze, not given him any dialogue, and had him eaten by a Horta in the first few minutes instead of dragging his death out.

This film looks like it was shot by my grandmother. You'll know what I mean when you see the weird, grainy texture of the film and the bad color -- as though Grandma decided to process those precious family photos in her bath water.

It's pretty obvious from the beginning that these soldiers are going to learn how to be decent human beings, since they start off as greedy bastards in search of a profit. When they come across Iraqi people being slaughtered by their own soldiers, what else are they going to do besides lead them to freedom? Clooney does his usual smarmy acting job. Wahlberg does the predictable understated, "I'm not Marky Mark anymore" thing, and Ice Cube, well, his acting just leaves me cold.

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