Hacker Cinema
Three Kings
1999 · Film · 114 min
Directed by David O. Russell
A group of American soldiers stationed in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War find a map they believe will take them to a huge cache of stolen Kuwaiti gold hidden near their base, and they embark on a secret mission that's destined to change everything.
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8 comments on Hacker News
Because Kelly's Heroes is the world's finest movie and revolves around an intra-preneurial enterprise that hacks the mechanism of war for personal profit.
Basically its like Office Space and Three Kings rolled into one.
> Every war movie would have a "Vehicles and props kindly provided by the US Armed Forces".
There's a whole bunch of war movies that are absolutely NOT approved by the US DoD, because they show things in an unfavorable light. Generally this means no access to actual equipment like M1 tanks or 'real' aircraft, which must be substituted using somebody else's b-roll, or CGI.
It is generally pretty easy to tell the difference between movies that were filmed with DoD filming office cooperation (Battleship), and ones that might show something about the military in an unflattering or unprofessional light (Three Kings).
One very famous example is Apocalypse Now, the helicopter scene and a lot of the rest of it was filmed in the Philippines, after making a large payment to their military for use of the Hueys.
The excellent film "Three Kings" dealt with a very similar topic, from back during the first Gulf War: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Kings_(1999_film)
Three Kings movie, starring George Clooney
As well as Three Kings and Hurt Locker mentioned elsewhere, there's also Jarhead. All great movies.
There was also Green Zone, which was OK.
The US foreign policy can destroy the well-being of entire nations, and therefore the lives of millions of people. When you come to the conclusion that your life and the lives of everyone you've known have been fucked over by a nation half way around the world, I image that can get you pretty mad.
The movie Three Kings explores this a bit:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120188/
No, Three Kings paints a few AWOL oddballs on a quest to steal a treasure as benevolent, and apart from the whole theme of the movie being the ill impact of our involvement in the Middle East, goes out of its way to talk about how the US military killed children.
Full Metal Jacket.
• Three Kings.
• In The Valley of Elah.
Good Morning Vietnam.
A Few Good Men.
Platoon.
• Jarhead.
Casualties Of War.
• The Men Who Stare At Goats.
The Deer Hunter.
The Thin Red Line.
• Syriana.
• The Green Zone.
• Stop Loss.
Also, • HBO's "Generation Kill".
(•'d relatively recent movies)
I don't think "The Hurt Locker" was particularly critical of the military and didn't count it. Also not counting documentaries like "Restrepo".
I hereby dispute the idea that the DOD has made it impossible for big-budget Hollywood movies to criticize the US military, and suggest instead that the bias Hollywood in favor of the military is responding to customer preferences and not leading it. Given what I presume to be America's default position of "supporting our troops", I'm struck by how many films Hollywood produce that challenge that default.
Remember also that Hollywood confronts at least two vectors of consumer preference in marketing films: first, Americans (in the large) have a (typical) diffuse nationalistic home-team support for our overseas adventures, and, more importantly, there's a less-political less-issue-oriented reverence expected for the sacrifices made by the young people we send into combat which is especially intense during times when large numbers of people are serving in combat zones. In other words, it's especially tricky to criticize the military during active conflicts.
Also, Three Kings is a fantastic movie.