Three Kings; Movies I could watch over and over.

I just watched Three Kings on TVO. I first watched it years ago at Chris K’s place with a bunch of the boys, and I’d forgotten what a terriffc movie it was. I mostly remember Bassam being angry/frustrated that it portrayed Iraqis in a bad light, but I found then and find now that I have sympathy for almost every Iraqi character in the movie.

I imagine I’d feel differently about the whole movie if I was Iraqi.

The truth of the matter is that, given the circumstances that the movie lays out, most people would walk away from those prisoners and never look back. I cried while watching it, and at least half of the crying was for the people who are never rescued by any heroic effort of anyone from any nation. In the movie, maybe they rescue like, a hundred people. In real life, I’m not sure that the Americans actually helped any Iraqis escape. Who’s willing to risk a court martial and a further disruption of their life for some people in the desert who don’t even speak English? The kind of heroics in this movie don’t exist in real life. Certainly not in any military I know of.

Oh, it’s a well-made movie, anyway. It’s funny and cynical and Mark Wahlberg does a great job. He’s really good at the kind of pathetic, wring-your-heartstrings without getting sappy thing. The shot of him working as a photocopier repairman is so human. And the torture scene makes you want to cry for the torturer, which is great directing.

So this movie pretty much slays me, and sits in that place which makes it difficult to give forks for. I’m sure twenty of you have all kinds of criticism of it, but I’d put it on my shelf of movies I could watch over and over.

Okay, so that shelf also contains:
The Indiana Jones Trilogy
The Star Wars Trilogy
Independence Day
Tombstone
Chaplin
GirlFight
Blue Crush
BBC’s Pride and Prejudice
State and Main
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

For a girl who used to think she didn’t like action movies, I sure do like a lot of action movies.
Also, Three Kings used a different kind of film and processing that gave it this dark blue cast which is really beautiful. And some of the editing is soooo perfectly spot-on.