|
THREE
KINGS: On a realisation path
George
Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube play American soldiers
during Gulf War, who come across human suffering as
the countries clash...
 Set
in March 1991, in the Iraqi desert, at the end of the
Gulf War, Three Kings is about a small group of American
soldiers, who are determined to steal a huge cache of
gold, reputed to be hidden somewhere near the desert
base. The soldiers get hold of a map they believe will
take them to the gold, but when they embark on a journey,
it leads to unexpected discoveries, which drastically
changes their lives.
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube and Spike Jonze
play the American soldiers, who have spent weeks in
the base camp, while the Persian Gulf war is fought
by high-tech specialists. The impersonality of the war
has left them bored, and after the cease-fire, they
are looking forward to leaving the desert, when they
land the map. The treasure-hunt leads them into Iraqi
territory, where they see the complex circumstances
of life, in a country at war itself. The four soldiers’
mission then changes radically, becoming a journey of
discovery and redemption.
Director
David O Russell spent 18 months researching the Gulf
War and its aftermath, before writing the film, so that
he had a complete understanding of the historical landscape.
Says Russell, “When I started investigating the
war, I only knew the official story - that we went to
the Middle East and kicked Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.
But when I looked at it more closely, I saw that Hussein
was left in power and George Bush encouraged the Iraqi
civilians to rise up against Hussein and said, ‘We’ll
help you do it’. And the people did rise up, and
we didn’t support them...and they got massacred
by their own army.”
Russell
thought this would make for an interesting backdrop
for a story about a band of soldiers, who go into the
surreal, corrupted Iraqi atmosphere after the war. “The
soldiers think Iraq is littered with the cell phones,
luxury cars and booty stoeln from rich Kuwait, and they
want to steal something for themselves. But they suddenly
find a situation that completely confronts their humanity
and demands that they re-think what they are doing,”
the director explains.
The
story could have been told strictly as an action-adventure,
but Russell turned it into a dramatic story with a lot
of action, and a tremendous amount of comedy.
George
Clooney, who plays Captain Archie Gates in the film,
was deeply impressed by the role, of a cynical career
soldier getting ready to retire. Talking about his role
he says, “The film was so different and so smart.
It had elements of great films like Lawrence Of Arabia
and Schindler’s List, because in all these films,
you start out doing something for mercenary reasons
and personal gain, and eventually you do what’s
right.”
The
director was keen that Mark Wahlberg play the part of
Troy, the family man of the troop. Troy is a working-class
guy from Detroit who has a wife and daughter waiting
for him back home. Wahlberg says that he was attracted
to the script because it was about “ordinary guys,
not Rambo types. He elaborates, “They have to make
choices about what’s really right and what’s
really wrong, they have to rise to the occasion in an
imperfect world.”
Renowned
rap artist Ice Cube was selected to play the spiritual
character of ‘Chief’ because, as the director
puts it, “Cube is a very intense guy, but he’s
also got a good heart, and I thought it would be great
to show this side of him.”
More Stories...
SHANGHAI NOON : Yankee Chan and
the princess
THE
STORY OF US -- Seven-year itch!
Violence, not sex,
turns French Minister off film
|
