Three Kings

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

This audacious hybrid of cinematic styles is pure entertainment.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

An extraordinary experience: an original and brilliant combination of comedy, action and sophisticated political comment -- the best American movie of the year thus far.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A daring, teeth-grinding experience that doesn't let the viewer rest easy.

Portland Oregonian Diana Abu-Jaber

An all-hell-breaks-loose, panicky fever of a story, all of it drenched in grainy, color-saturated cinematography.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Some kind of weird masterpiece...one of the best movies of the year.

Film.com Sean Means

A biting satire of military myopia and political double-dealing -- possibly the best wartime comedy since Robert Altman's "M*A*S*H."

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

The visuals are wild, the sound track has the audacity to underscore the subtext instead of just echoing the obvious, the comedy is irreverent and occasionally slapstick, and the metaphorical details are consistently strong.

TNT RoughCut Christopher Brandon

It's full of energy and drops an emotional bomb with its unexpected tale of reluctant heroes.

Time Richard Schickel

A brilliant exercise in popular but palpable surrealism.

Film.com Robert Horton

It's like a madly inventive hybrid of "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre."

Newsweek David Ansen

Blackly funny, unafraid to shift emotional gears from farce to horror, peppered with spectacular action.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

When it comes to rousing action, whip-smart laughs and moral uplift that doesn't pump sunshine up your ass, Three Kings rules.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

One of the most exciting Hollywood action films in years, and the best Vietnam movie since "Apocalypse Now."

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Off-and-on cynical and sentimental, Russell's darkly comic tale shows how much can be done with familiar material when you're burning to do things differently and have the gifts to pull that off.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Enormously entertaining.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

A war movie with a conscience, an action movie with a funny bone, a caper movie with a shifting agenda.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

You walk out amazed and refreshed by the way it kicks the assumptions out from under the genre.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Impossible to resist.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

A work of strangely bold, distinctly American pop art - proud to be ashamed, ashamed to be proud, unafraid to ignore its commercial bearings.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Exhilarating, alternately funny and horrific film.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Russell has combined pathos, terror, and black comedy with a dollop of Hollywood feel-good patriotism to make one of the best studio efforts this year.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

As entertaining as it is a viable, political message destined to make viewers rethink their stance on war.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An astonishing movie that keeps you off-balance from the first scene.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A genre movie with an agenda that's too packed. Inevitably, some of the many balls it's juggling get dropped -- (but it's) one of the most entertaining and original actioners in several years.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

So wild an approach demands straightforward performances that don't draw attention to themselves, and that's what the actors supply.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

So overstuffed with random fireworks that despite its politics, it's easy to imagine the film getting a four-star rave from Bush or Saddam.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Visual pyrotechnics and dark humor aside, Three Kings rules because it dares to dig for such truths, whether banal or significant.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

A nifty little war movie that defies convenient categorization.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

Better than the usual Hollywood rot, but dialectical it ain't.

Film.com John Hartl

Closer to "M*A*S*H" than "Dr. Strangelove," which in itself wouldn't be a bad thing. But for all its engaging qualities, Three Kings doesn't seem to know what kind of beast it is.

Variety Todd McCarthy

An impudently comic, stylistically aggressive and, finally, very thoughtful manner.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Russell's stylish and imaginative filmmaking wages its own war against lunkheaded and sometimes offensive material.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Increasingly muddled, cumulatively monotonous, would-be heartwarming, Three Kings becomes its own entertainment allegory -- searching, Hollywood style, for the point at which blatant self-interest can turn humanitarian, while still remaining profitable.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

It isn't nearly as successful a showcase for this filmmaker's extraordinary talents.