Clooney, Wahlberg and Ice Cube

A column of refugees in the desert

The Gulf War - Operation Desert Storm - was the most recent major military campaign to involve the whole of the US military. It was also the most exhaustively reported war ever - at times, it seemed as though there were more TV reporters than soldiers out there in the desert. So, as a result, we think we know more about the Gulf War than any other conflict in history.

Jumping into a Humvee, they plan to “leave at dawn and be back by lunch”. But it doesn’t quite go the way they planned...

Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney David O Russell on location with Clooney

As Three Kings makes clear, however, we don’t. An unconventional action/drama that alternates grim realism with surrealistic dark comedy, Three Kings is pretty much the kind of take on the Gulf War one would expect from iconoclastic writer/director David O Russell (Spanking the Monkey, Flirting With Disaster), here making his first major studio picture. It tells of four very different US soldiers sidelined by the high-tech war, who are about to be shipped out without ever having caught sight of the enemy.

Then they learn the whereabouts of a stash of Kuwaiti bullion stolen by the Iraqi Army and hidden somewhere in the desert. “Saddam stole it from the sheikhs,” argues Special Forces Major Archie Gates (George Clooney), the only career soldier of the four. “I have no problem stealing it from Saddam. Just one stash would be easy to take, and that would be enough to get us out of our day jobs - unless you reservists are in love with your day jobs..?”