Extras : Scene index, Cast and Crew, Production Notes, Behind-the-scenes
Documentary, Tour of the Iraqi Village Set, Director's Video Journal,
Deleted scenes with/out commentary, Interview with Director of Photography
Newton Thomas Sigel, An Intimate Look at the Acting Process with Ice Cube,
Theatrical Trailer, Special Photography, Hidden Bunkers,
Director's Commentary, Producers Commentary.
Director:
David O. Russell
(Flirting with Disaster, Spanking the Monkey, Three Kings)
Producers:
Charles Roven, Paul Junger Witt and Edward L. McDonnell
Screenplay:
David O. Russell
Music:
Carter Burwell
Cast:
Archie Gates: George Clooney (Batman and Robin, From Dusk Till Dawn, One Fine Day, Out of Sight, The Peacemaker, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, The Thin Red Line, Three Kings, TV: E.R.)
Troy Barlow: Mark Wahlberg (The Big Hit, The Corruptor, Fear, Traveller, Three Kings)
Chief Elgin: Ice Cube (Anaconda, Dangerous Ground, Friday, The Glass Shield, Higher Learning, Three Kings)
Conrad Vig: Spike Jonze (Three Kings, Director: Being John Malkovich)
Three Kings
actually features four leading men, but given the biblical reference between
that and the gold involved in the film, it's one little oversight I'm going
to have to overlook.
Life in the United States Army obviously isn't enough for the men on show
here in March 1991 when the Gulf War has ended. They figure they deserve a
kickback for their efforts and head off at dawn one day to find and steal as
much of Saddam Hussein's Kuwaiti gold bullion as possible.
Led by Major Archie Gates (George Clooney playing who else but
George Clooney, yet again), family man Sgt. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg),
Troy-wannabe Conrad Vig (music video and film director Spike Jonze)
and god-fearing Chief Elgin (rap singer Ice Cube), the plan is to break
in, get the loot and get out and home in time for lunch. That way they won't
be spotted and everything will be hunky-dory.
Of course, nothing will be as simple as that. Certain attempts to progress
fail and just when they think things are starting to go their way, huge setbacks
are always on the horizon. As they say: when one door shuts, another slams in
your face.
When I put this DVD on I expected a typical American gung-ho action romp
with endless wisecracks from Mr. Clooney, but what I saw surprised me a lot.
The film uses some spectacular special effects at times, particularly when
a detailed explanation of death-by-bullet-entering-stomach is given early on,
plus many deadly serious moments that kill any potentially-humourous situations
stone dead. Of course, I could go into detail about these but I don't want to
spoil it for anyone reading this... safe to say that our heroes get involved
in a democrating uprising along the way and helping out the Iraqi refugees led
by Amir Abdullah (Cliff Curtis) won't be easy.
The film also stars Nora Dunn as roving reporter Adriana Cruz, plus
there are typical army men roles for Scream's Jamie Kennedy
as Walter Wogaman and Forrest Gump's Mykelti Williamson as
Colonel Horn.
As well as the picture being anamorphic and in the original 2.35:1 widescreen
ratio, the detail is striking in all the right places. However, you may be
forgiven for thinking that the colours look rather washed-out at times, but
all is not lost when you read the statement at the beginning of the film :
"The makers of Three Kings used visual distorion and unusual colors in some
scenes of this film. They intentionally used these unconventional techniques
to enhance the emotional intensity of the storyline."
There's less explosions to hear than I thought there would be, but the total
number of action sounds is plenty and is well juxtaposed with atmosphere and
Coen brothers regular Carter Burwell providing the score.
Extras :
Chapters :
Always one to be liberal with the chapters, Warner give us 31 over the
115-minute film.
Languages/Subtitles :
English is the only language and it gets a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.
Subtitles are available in the same language plus French.
And there's more... :
Jam-packed just isn't the word for it. There's oodles of extras here that'll
take you days to fully get to grips with.
First we'll start with the weakest of the lot though - Cast and Crew.
I'd expect a biog and filmog of each character listed here, but it's just a
brief cast list of the principal players and that's it. There are several
pages of Production Notes detailing the film's origins, the historical
basis, the use of as many Iraqi people as possible as extras and the way some
scenes in the film use different film stocks thus to recreate the harsh,
colourless documentary feel, especially early on.
A 22-minute Behind-the-scenes Documentary takes you through the filming
process with comments and chat from the main members of the cast and crew.
The Tour of the Iraqi Village Set takes 10 minutes and does exactly what
it says on the tin. The Director's Video Journal is a personal 14-minute
piece shot by David O. Russell as he films various moments in his life
during the movie's gestation period.
There are four Deleted scenes which were probably best left out but are
still interesting and can be viewed with commentary from the director or as
nature intended, a 7-minute discussion on cinematography with an Interview
with Director of Photography Newton Thomas Sigel, a rather inconsequential
2-minute piece entitled An Intimate Look at the Acting Process with Ice Cube
directed by Spike Jonze and Special Photography, a selection of on-set
photo.
Reaching the end of the extras section, you'll find the original Theatrical
Trailer in anamorphic 16:9 widescreen but it does give too much away so
watch it after you've seen the film, a feature-length Director's
Commentary track, plus another one too from producers Charles Roven
and Edward L. McDonnell.
Finally, to be found where you can, are Hidden Bunkers, which provide
passwords for use on the official Three Kings Website. I found two
of these, but how many are there?
Menu :
All of the menus are static and silent, but have great screen-wipes between
them in the form of clips from the film pinpointed by special effects.
There are options to start the film, select a scene, choose the language
or visit the extensive extras menu.
Overall, as I said earlier, this film was a far cry from what I was expecting
but it still delivered a solid two hours of entertainment, although Clooney
could do with investing some of his profits in acting lessons.
There's no release date yet for a UK Region 2 DVD, but when it comes it will
have to go some to match the supplemental material on view here.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
