THREE KINGS (1999) *** The world has suffered greatly, irreparably, from one of two things. Either (a) George W. Bush should have seen this movie before deciding on a simplistic approach to Iraq , or (b) he shouldn't watch movies that go so far over his head. Yes, they are making fun of his daddy, no it's not easy to fix. David O. Russell does an incredible of job of working in so many cross-currents of the dynamic, without going off on tangents sacrificing the momentum of a meticulously considered plot. He should get some kind of award for that, and he tops it off with slivers of avant-garde filmmaking that serve the complex dynamic in appropriately disconcerting ways. On top of all that, parts of it are very funny. George Clooney is entirely credible as the cerebral tough-guy special forces center of the action. An anti-Kierkegaard, his is a truth that is subjective, rather than a subjectivity that is true. His defense would be that no truth suffers from it, on balance. It's a delicate balance, ok, in opposition to indelicate truths. He still doesn't get as many good lines as Spike Jonze the lunatic, another anti-Kierkegaard I suppose. Don't look now, the war zone's fulla ‘em! It's not easy to spot an evil character in the whole damn shooting match, or a good one. It's not even shades of gray, really, just shades of necessity and self-interest. Everyone's is to stay out of situations like this.
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