From the director of “The Fighter” and “Silver Linings Playbook” and starring legit movie stars and box office draws George Clooney and Mark Walhberg (as well as the cottage industry unto himself known as Ice Cube), it is kind of amazing to look back and see how Warner Brothers doubted this movie and barely had the nerve to fund it and see it through. But then again, back in 1999, director David O. Russell was a nobody auteur and he was making a movie with a guy who played a doctor on television and a rapper turned underwear model. It is kind of easy to put yourself in that mindset and see how “Three Kings” could have very well been a complete disaster.

And yet, it is not. Instead “Three Kings” is the movie that really launched Clooney’s movie career, helped legitimize Wahlberg, and gave Russell the experience he needed to build upon in order to become the award winning filmmaker he is today. A heist movie set during the first Gulf War, “Three Kings” starts out as a fun romp of a war movie and then gets surprisingly deep and even more interesting as the movie progresses and it becomes less about the heist and more about what it takes for a person to “do the right thing,” so to speak. Funny, unique, well directed and with an energy all its own, this is a pretty great movie, another fine cinematic entry from the rather amazing year that was 1999, and one that is standing the test of time as we get closer and closer to the twenty year anniversary of this flick being made.Continue Reading …