Welcome to the Movie Club! Today’s movie is David O. Russell’s black comedy war film, Three Kings!
Despite its title, Three Kings actually has four main characters. It stars an unusual combination of George Clooney, Ice Cube, Mark Wahlberg and Spike Jonze as four American soldiers who decide to pull a heist to steal Kuwaiti gold from Saddam Hussein as the Gulf War is wrapping up. Things go awry (obviously) and they end up reconciling with their own selfishness, the harsh realities of war, and the US’ involvement in the Middle East.
Three Kings premiered on September 27, 1999, before a wide release in the US and Canada on October 1, 1999, followed by a staggered international release throughout much of 2000.1 It was very well received by critics, and currently has a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.2 It was not really box office success but over-all was probably not a bomb, earning nearly $108 million against a budget of $48 million.3
- Some of the film was developed using a process called skip bleach processing in order to give early scenes their unique, grainy, high contrast look
- A rerelease was planned for theatres and on DVD in 2004 due to the Iraq War, and David O. Russell filmed a documentary to go with it, but plans for the rerelease were ultimately scrapped at the last minute.
- The film’s script was originally written by John Ridley, but Russell claims that he was offered a selection of scripts, heard the tagline for the movie, and then rewrote it entirely without even reading the original, resulting in Ridley only getting a “Story By” credit.
Up Next: Our next movie will be Jonathan Glazer’s science fiction film Under the Skin! We will meet to discuss it on January 30 at 12PM EST. Check out the trailer and where it’s playing below:
USA
- Stream: Nada wtf lol
- Rent or Buy: Prime Video, Fandango At Home, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube, Flix Fling
Canada
- Stream: AMC+ (via Prime Video), Crave (also via Prime Video), Hoopla, Netflix, Shudder (also via Prime Video) and Apple TV), STARZ (via Prime Video)
- Rent or Buy: Apple TV, Flix Fling
UK
- Stream: Studio Canal Presents (via Prime Video)
- Rent or Buy: Google Play, YouTube, Amazon, Sky Store, Curzon, Rakuten TV, Apple TV, BFI (rental only), JustWatch TV (rental only)
- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120188/releaseinfo ↩︎
- https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/three_kings ↩︎
- https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Three-Kings#tab=summary ↩︎
- https://web.library.yale.edu/film/notes/fn00001 ↩︎
- https://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/11/01/soldiers.pay/index.html ↩︎
- https://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/intrussell.shtml ↩︎