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| Three
Kings
Yoshi and Mandrake
on the upcoming release Three Kings:
The film was in a
fairly complete form. The sound mix needed a little more work
and a lot of work still needs to be done in the lab, as far
as the color of the film. The film does a great job of blending
comedy, drama, and suspense. The plot takes place at the end
of Desert Storm. While taking in the Iraq soldiers, some members
of the U.S. army find a map. They believe that this map will
lead them to the Kuwaiti(?) gold. The first twenty minutes are
hysterical. They introduce all of the characters with a freeze
frame and then a caption, all of which were very funny. Then
the film takes a more serious tone as they head out for the
gold. It still manages to have many funny parts during this
section, though. The characters looking for the gold are played
by George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Spike Jonze(is
this the great music video director?). The performances by these
four are all great. I was most surprised with Ice Cube. This
is definitely the best I have ever seen him. The cinematography
was amazing, with a lot of similarities to Saving Private Ryan.
The action scenes were all shot hand held, many shots had different
speeds (fast and slow motion), and it had a grainy look, similar
to SPR. The action is the movie was great as well.
It's a much different take on action scenes than we're used
to. It's a much different type of movie than we're used to from
the Studio system as well. This has to do with the fact that
David O. Russell directed it. He did a fantastic job. He got
great performances and told an extremely entertaining story.
The film is also very violent and gory, which some audience
members
seemed not to like. I thought the violence was handled well
and shot very real. There are also a few interesting takes on
some of the action scenes, with some very slow-mo shots of bullets
(not at all like The Matrix or a Ringo Lam style bullet POV)
and some great shots, inside the human body, of what a bullet
actually does. Most of the audience seemed to really enjoy it,
everyone laughed at the right parts. Three Kings just does a
great job of blending all of these genres. A lot of movies tend
to really mess up when they have a serious moment next to a
funny one.
-Yoshi
I thought that the best part of the film was the way that it
mixed the genres as well. It went from a comedy format like
I expected from Russell, to a serious more dramatic tale or
wrong or right like that of Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The
big surprise was not that Russell could handle the change in
style, but that the transitions between the styles were so well
done. This
was a unique way of presenting a story that, put in the hands
of a more commercial director, would be unwatchable. Another
thing that I loved were the performances by the principle actors.
George Clooney delivered a strong performance that is comparable
to the one that he gave in Out of Sight. Wahlberg's performance
is filled with truth and emotion that rivals his
remarkable one in Boogie Nights. Surprisingly, Ice Cube goes
against his image and does extremely well. Spike Jonze and Jaime
Kennedy are both hysterical throughout the film. Everything
about this film was great. David O. Russell has done it again.
-Mandrake |
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| The following is another
review via an unknown author |
This review of Three
Kings was from an audience test. The film is now supposed to be
released on Oct. 1 -- that date has been changed 3 or 4 times,
so heaven only know when it will actually come out!
Since I've now seen every film that any studio is releasing this
summer (well, almost ... but it sure feels like it), I'm already
turning my attention to the fall. There's a lot of films I've
been dying to see that they teased heavily at ShoWest this year,
and of them, THREE KINGS would have to place near the very top
of my list.
My wait is over, thanks to Joe
Farrell and his many fine assistants. Tonight, Joe looked me
in the eye and had a nice, chatty conversation with me as we
were waiting to go in. I was right there near the front of the
line, minding my own business, when he actually started talking
to me. Delightful. Nice to see you, sir. He even told me to
"enjoy the film" as I went in.
Well, Joe, I did. In fact, I'm going to call THREE KINGS as
one of the early contenders for my 10 Best of '99 list. I can't
imagine I'll see any film that offers a better blend of action,
drama, political material, and dark, dark, dark comedy. If I
do, then this is going to be one of the best film years we've
had. Right now, though, David O. Russell and Warner Bros. have
every
reason to believe that they own the weekend of October 9, which
is when I think the film is slated to open.
The film starts abruptly as a single
title card lets us know where and when we are. "March 1991
-- The War Has Just Ended." Just like that, we're following
Mark Wahlberg through the desert. He stops when he spots an
Iraqi on top of a sand dune. He calls back to his platoon, "Are
we shooting?" At first, no one seems to understand his
question. He points out that the Iraqi
has a gun, which gets everyone's attention. Once it's determined
that, yes, they are shooting, that's what Mark does. He pops
the guy. As everyone congratulates him on finally seeing a little
action, and as photos are popped of soldiers posing with the
body, we see the opening title.
Welcome to the first movie that truly nails America on the Gulf
War.
Now, I don't know about a lot of our readers, but I remember
the climate around the Gulf War vividly. It was terrifying to
those of us in our early 20s because it was the first hot conflict
to pop up that was sold as having real potential. When I say
"sold," I'm being specific with my word choice, too,
since this was also the first war to be pre-packaged for television.
CNN had a great logo and theme song for the war, and their coverage
was polished, making instant celebrities out of reporters. We
all watched, and I did as much reading as I could about the
causes of the thing. I started reading out of fear. What if
this thing drags on? What if there's a draft? But the more I
read, the more I realized that we were seeing an economic skirmish,
a pissing
match over oil. Saddam Hussein was a paper dictator, an easy
figure to use to rile up Americans. The "war" was
nothing more than an exercise in thuggery, exactly the kind
of conflict that we would be involved in by a criminal like
George Bush. It was immoral and disgusting.
And no one said a word.
I have spent much of this decade marveling at how completely
we seem to have absorbed this event and justified it in our
heads. I'm astounded at how I still hear people talk about it
like we did something or accomplished some great goal. And when
COURAGE UNDER FIRE came out, I thought the film had some strong
performances and tried to explore ethical issues, even as it
dodged the most important issue of all -- should we have been
there?
I never in a million years would have guessed that a film starring
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Ice Cube would turn out to
be the first serious, sober look at the ethics of that conflict.
I never would have guessed that Warner Bros., a company that
is in bed with the man who most benefited from the Gulf War
(Ted Turner), would release such a film. And I never would have
believed it possible that David O. Russell, who has given us
small, carefully studied character comedies (SPANKING THE MONKEY
and the brilliant FLIRTING WITH DISASTER) up till now would
have pulled off the first great war comedy
since Altman's M*A*S*H.
The premise of the film that I was told sold it short. I heard
that the film was about three soldiers who find a treasure map
on a dead Iraqi who then set out to retrieve Saddam's gold from
a hidden bunker. The trailer at ShoWest made me think it would
be a hard edged action comedy. Instead, there's a film here
of considerable weight and conscience, one that has far more
on its mind than mere entertainment.
|
| Don't get me wrong, though. The
film is wildly entertaining. The cast is wonderful, with the core
group of soldiers played by Clooney, Wahlberg, Cube, and music
video director Spike Jonze. Each of these actors does standout
work, and together they are marvelous to behold. There's an easy
chemistry on display here, and no one does anything that would
make them stand out as a movie star. Instead, their work supports
each other and lets the script stand front and center, which is
a wonderful thing. This film is smart, and manages to accomplish
major tonal shifts effortlessly. I kept waiting for Russell to
fumble. Sure, he knows character, but can he direct action? Okay,
he can handle action, but how is he with emotional drama? Okay,
he can do that, too. Damn ... this guy is truly gifted. |
There's some sensational work from
the supporting cast as well, but I am afraid I don't know several
of the actors' names. The lead Iraqi rebel in particular deserves
high praise, as does Wahlberg's interrogator from late in the
film. These two men give a human face to the Iraqi people that
we haven't seen in American films yet. The film starts off with
characters trading lines
about "dune coons" and "towelheads" and "camel
jockeys" and "sand niggers," and there's an attitude
in all the major characters of detachment. They don't want to
help anyone. They just want some damn gold. But their transition
to seeing the people around them as human is believable, and I
think many of the people in the audience made the same journey.
Understanding the emotions of the people in Iraq is made simple
in one brilliant scene involving Wahlberg and his interrogator.
I won't ruin it for you, but I do want to make special note of
it. It's writing and directing and performing like this that makes
going to movies worthwhile and even occasionally important. |
The print we saw tonight was beyond
rough. It almost felt like it was held together with scotch tape
on every splice. I'm confident we were the first test audience
to see the film. One of the things that was obviously still in
the rough editing stages was the level of violence in the film.
I know Hollywood is under fire for this now, so I'd like to address
Warner directly
on this issue. This is the kind of violence that everyone recognizes
as responsible. There's a sequence that explores the real dangers
of being shot and another involving a central character who catches
a bullet in the chest. Both of those scenes are more startlingly
graphic than we're used to in studio films, but I would implore
you to leave them intact. This film illustrates just how much
a single gunshot or a single bomb dropped can do to a family,
a community, a country. This is the kind of imagery that will
teach people something about reality. This isn't MATRIX, with
234,000,000,000 gunshots being fired in a scene for no reason
other than entertainment. This is important. |
| I could probably run on for another
forty paragraphs about this film, but I won't. Hopefully I'll
be able to talk to Russell about this film further before it comes
out and share those conversations with you. Even if that doesn't
happen, though, make note of that title -- THREE KINGS. It's a
powerhouse. |
| Author Unknown |
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