Last year was a year which was described by many as a disappointing year for film, with very little of significance coming from the film industry, in terms of ground breaking or memorable movies. For me last year was the year that Hollywood decided to make some interesting (The Insider), un-conventional (Being John Malkovich) and epic (Gladiator) films. In Three Kings I surprisingly found all three and more.
             Advertised as a buddy-buddy war/action movie, with the obligatory main stream actor (George Clooney) and the equally obligatory rap star (Ice Cube) which Hollywood movies tend to be moving towards recently. Three Kings (TK) is a story adapted from a short plot summary called Spoils of War. Based at the tail end of the Gulf War, it follows the story of four American soldiers who find a map leading to millions of dollars worth of gold. Predictably as with all heist movies, not everything goes according to plan and the soldiers are brought into the front line, forced into helping refugees escape Iraq.
             "Up until now the Gulf war was deemed too close for comfort... this so called media war was considered out of bounds... Adios to delicacy, because David O'Russell's battering ram of a war movie has by-passed the usual 15 years of telling it how it wasn't filmmaking to go straight for the historical jugular"
             Ian Nathan (Empire April 2000 #130)
             Agreeing, as I do, with the quote, it was for this reason that I found Three Kings so compelling. Instead of coming out of the cinema feeling that I had just seen the American Dream on film I felt that what I had seen was an American film questioning the US army and it's handling of the situation in the Gulf. It came with rave reviews, unusual for a Hollywood film, and was a sleeper hit at the box office.
             This essay will look at the production of the film, encompassing the processes and incidents. As well I will look at the films place in Hollywood an...