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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Three Kings
Warner Bros


7.8

based on 34 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 22 votes
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FILM:

BOOKS:

Rebels On The Backlot by Sharon Waxman

MPAA RATING: R for graphic war violence, language and some sexuality

Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze, Nora Dunn, Cliff Curtis, and Jamie Kennedy

A small group of adventurous American soldiers (Clooney, Whalberg, Ice Cube, Jonze) in Iraq at the end of the Gulf War is determined to steal a huge cache of gold reputed to be hidden somewhere near their desert base. Finding a map they believe will take them to the gold, the soldiers embark on a journey that leads to unexpected discoveries, enabling them to rise to a heroic challenge that drastically changes their lives. (Warner Brothers)

GENRE(S):	War
WRITTEN BY:	David O. Russell John Ridley (story)
DIRECTED BY:	David O. Russell
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: April 11, 2000 Video: April 11, 2000 Theatrical: October 1, 1999
RUNNING TIME:	114 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

This audacious hybrid of cinematic styles is pure entertainment.

100

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.

100

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

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

100

Portland Oregonian Diana Abu-Jaber

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

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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

100

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kennedy B. gave it a10:
The 3rd best film of 1999(next to American Beauty and Magnolia).

Jim H. gave it a9:
I just watched this for the second time (2006) against the backdrop of current events (ie. resistance to, support for ongoing war vs. terror). Yoon C (and detractors among the metacritics), while your comments are intelligent and incisive, I would argue that this movie is great precisely because it plays (and I mean, plays) along all those lines without telling you what to think. If anything it shows that all people's opinions are ridiculous and it imposes none of its own. It sounds to me like you are looking for a movie to tell you what to think of war in Iraq (that is, to tell you "war is hell" or something like that - the message you are expecting becausue you've already heard it in other movies and novels). Whatever else you say about this, it's a war movie unlike any other. It rocks first and foremost, but it also socks and it even (dare I say) does make you think. And it's still relevant seven years later, in ways that it was not when it was made. That anticipatory quality makes it much more artful than the huge majority of "deep" arthouse movies with a moral agenda. Maybe the best thing about it is that it gets the Schwarzenegger-set to watch and rewatch a movie where a child cries over her dead mother, where men are torn by morally ambiguity, where in the end we are at least given an inkling of how hard it is to "do the right thing."

seth w gave it a9:
Damn good movie. interesting and different. probably to much so for some people.

Tony B gave it a3:
Easily one of the most overrated films to come down the pike in a long time.

Jonathan H. gave it a 7:
Kind of a disappointment, but still very good war movie.

Pat C. gave it a 3:
Invades Iraq as a hitherto unclaimed territory in which to initiate cinematic excess. Meticulous detail to realism as a backdrop to political and moralistic posturing. It's never easy to believe we do the right things for the right reasons internationally, or that our soldier's hearts are in the right places. But it is easy to stipulate that the representations of these three bozos to same be discarded right from the get-go.

Yoon C. gave it a 1:
MTV war movie, clever but brainless, moralistic but repugnant, smarminess posing as subversive deconstruction of genre conventions. It purports to make Americans face up to the truths of the Gulf War and the brutality of mayhem yet has Ice Cube blow up a helicopter with a rigged football(!!), and most ridiculously of all, has an Iraqi soldier lecture Mark Walhberg on the hypocrisy of American culture by blabbering about why Michael Jackson wants to be white. Eh? Junk fantasy morality cooked up inside an indulgent mastrubatory mind, it has nothing to do with truth, historical or otherwise, or with decency, modest or far-reaching.

Three Kings Warner Bros

Three Kings
Warner Bros