Blu-ray Review: Three Kings (1999)

Now Available to Own

“Are we shooting people or what?” The sheer confusion and utter insanity of war embodied in the sardonic query posed by first class Army Reserve Sergeant Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg), which opens David O. Russell's screwball soldier boy heist movie immediately sets the tone of what's to come.

It's a pitch-perfect first line of dialogue in a year of enviably brilliant screenplays from American Beauty to Magnolia to Being John Malkovich and in 1999's prolific year where creative, thought-provoking masterpieces were pouring into the multiplex like rain in Seattle, the fact that we can instantly recall those words eleven years later speaks volumes.

Nonetheless, at the same time, we were overwhelmed and damn near spoiled by theatrical greatness the likes we haven't seen very often in recent years of titles that we usually randomly wind up adding to our Top 10 list largely by lack of suitable options. Thus, it's unfortunate that aside from critical praise including earning a major champion in Roger Ebert, Three Kings didn't receive the attention it deserved in a crowded twelve months of unforgettable pictures.

While overall the year belonged to Sam Mendes and Alan Ball's equally sardonic, satirical Beauty, ironically Kings was eclipsed in the arty scene by the efforts of one of the film's stars – Spike Jonze's own instant cult favorite Being John Malkovich.

And after American soldiers returned to Iraq following the horrific attacks of 9/11, Warner Brothers' acclaimed Kings began drawing a new wave of interest from fans. Particularly, it attracted those looking to address parallels in the both wars in tandem with the fact that both conflicts were overseen by presidents from the same family as well as the increasing concern that like the Gulf War, we were predominantly fighting for oil as addressed in Kings.

Yet because of sensitivity and controversy surrounding the situation, it seemed that the thing we needed more than anything in order to step back and really look closer (to use a lesson from Mendes' Beauty) with regard to Russell's Kings was time, making this recent Blu-ray release one of extraordinary pre-election urgency.

Honestly, this is particularly vital in assessing not just the confusion, overwhelming complexities and acknowledgment that nothing is black and white but to a larger extent in understanding just how eerie it is in retrospect to dissect the way that history just keeps repeating itself whether or not “we're shooting people or what.”

And although it's not bashful about its politics, Russell's movie works well on a number of levels, best perhaps as first and foremost an old-fashioned '60s testosterone fueled male camaraderie outsider picture of men on a mission.

But instead of presenting us with a Kelly's Heroes ensemble consisting of a Dirty Dozen or Magnificent Seven large number, we tag along with a small group of soldiers played by George Clooney's embittered nearly retired Major, Wahlberg's Troy and his friend Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) along with Troy's sycophantic sidekick Conrad (Jonze).

The core trio comprise the eponymous three kings, in an admittedly less than religious but extremely witty interpretation of the tale in reverse as unlike their namesake's role of bearing gifts after traveling afar, their intent is to take ill-gotten goods back for themselves in the form of Saddam Hussein's stolen Kuwaiti gold.

In addition to the Kubrickian Strangelove infused larger than life situations where messages masquerade as humor, Russell manages to satirize the media, most specifically via actress Nora Dunn's thinly disguised take on Christiane Amanpour, whose career at CNN you may recall was solidified for her Gulf War coverage.

To push this agenda of the filter of news coverage even further on a stylistic, subtle level, the look of the film is incredibly surreal as Kings' team bleached the film stock, thereby desaturating color in order to bring the war home to viewers the way that we first saw it in newsprint to trippy effect.

Piecing together different elements in a genre blending quilt of madness and freewheeling creativity, what begins as an adventurous buddy comedy morphs into something much more humanistic and troubling. Since they are after all supposed to be heroic, predictably the men's pursuit of stolen fortune is usurped by the reality of the “New Iraq” following the conclusion of the war as the American soldiers aren't able to take up arms against Saddam's loyal fighters who kill innocents in cold blood before their eyes.

Ultimately, they face a tough moral decision of whether or not to get involved without the government say-so because as both human beings and soldiers they just can't witness such atrocities without response. However, around this point, Kings begins to grow slightly incredulous as it moves from a smaller scale war film into something resembling a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western in the vein of the Kurosawa remake A Fistful of Dollars in yet another example of Russell's growing tapestry of genre interplay.

Nonetheless, ultimately its temporary loss of focus and direction in the last act is forgiven by the overall visceral impact of the work when the credits roll. Impossible to pin down, Kings is a towering achievement and the type of film that the abysmal, pointless Clooney vehicle The Men Who Stare at Goats proved cannot be duplicated.

However, given Russell's fascination with visualizing the damage a bullet causes on the inside of the body rather than through fake blood on the outside, Kings is not a film for the squeamish or to be watched while dining. But just like the insanity of wondering whether or not to fire a gun from the start, these explosive sequences are vital to illuminate what really goes on after the squeeze of a trigger.

Although his disagreement and fights with the director were widely publicized and debated in the media, Kings boasts a tremendous breakout performance by Clooney whose turn in the film solidified his potential as a leading man on the big screen as opposed to just his small screen work on TV's E.R..

And fortunately, the movie shines in an exceptional Blu-ray transfer wherein the explosive high definition sound rockets through all of your home theatre speakers and likewise ensures that you won't miss Russell's incredibly penned memorable lines. For the time has never been better to take another trip through Russell's royally twisted Kings to appreciate the genius hidden like Saddam's gold under the facade of a war-torn buddy heist action dramady.


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FTC Disclosure: Per standard professional practice, I received a review copy of this title in order to evaluate it for my readers, which had no impact whatsoever on whether or not it received a favorable or unfavorable critique.

Blu-ray Review: Max Payne (2008) -- Unrated 2-Disc Version

Seeking Audiences With a Vengeance
On Fox DVD, Blu-ray
& Amazon On Demand
1/20/09



No Payne, No Gain

To begin, I must confess to gamers that I'm more inclined to opt for Miss Pacman over Max Payne. Although, when it came to the film version, I knew one thing would be certain and that was-- to misquote the title of one of 2007's best films-- "There Will Be Bullets."

In transferring the neo-noir shooting game to the screen, a major challenge seemed to be the lack of audience control. In other words, no longer could we lock and load to bust down doors and fire at will any villains who crossed our path as Max Payne on his quest for justice to find the person responsible for the murder of his wife and daughter. No, instead, we just had to sit back and watch. Would it be enough or would our trigger fingers twitch from lack of X-box controls?

Bullets still fly of course and so, in the same vein of Sin City and Death Sentence, director John Moore (The Omen, Behind Enemy Lines) opted for a gritty hyper-real gun-metal color scheme that emphasized the darkness of the character's bloody quest as well as a preference for-- in the vein of classic noir-- filming mostly at night when the bogeyman come out to play, so to speak.

Cinematographer John Sela, production designer Daniel T. Dorrance and Moore revealed in Payne's press notes their initial wish to film the entire movie in black and white (which obviously would be a studio nightmare and unpopular choice for ticket buyers) so instead they "pushed the palette as far they could, with hard light, long shadows, and very graphic compositions."

Noting that they never used lights with color, favoring instead the most monochromatic look possible as Sela acknowledges, the filmmakers state that although the game itself is highly cinematic and largely noir inspired, they hesitated to use too much CGI.

As Detective Max Payne (a terrific Mark Wahlberg) goes on his Charles Bronson like mission through the underworld for three years trying to obtain any shred of evidence remaining on the unsolved murders of his wife and daughter--now relegated to working in the cold case room at the police station-- he begins to realize there are some fantastical elements at play.

Soon he becomes acquainted with a group of Russians including Quantum of Solace's Bond girl Olga Kurylenko (whose exquisite beauty in this film recalls a young Sophia Loren) and her sister played by Mila Kunis (who intriguingly was finally able to use her native Russian language). Moreover, in doing so, Payne also discovers that somehow embroiled into the complicated mystery that led to the murders is a pharmaceutical-engineered street drug, a group of characters all with a mysterious winged tattoo and murders that are believed to have been carried out by otherworldly creatures.

And intriguingly, as Payne's production notes share, puppetry was used for "creature wings" whenever possible in lieu of digital effects which would've probably been the obvious choice for a "video game movie." Additionally, given the film's prerequisite shoot-outs that required "bullet-time extreme slow-motion process" utilizing the "special motion camera system called Phantom," which Moore explains is "basically a digital hard drive that can shoot up to a thousand frames a second," Moore notes that he took great steps to ensure the look of Payne wouldn't seem too derivative or overly-familiar for those acquainted with something a bit similar in the films by The Wachowski Brothers as well as John Woo.

The results of the Phantom camera are impressive indeed but honestly, I found that it seemed more about showing off-- particularly in one concluding finale-- than about adding to the story and felt that overall, the visual look of the film is so superior (especially in its eye-popping Blu-ray quality) that I was more blown away by the film noir mood and visual look of the piece than the expensive gun trickery of slowing down one crucial bullet so that it takes forever to land.

Instead, noir lovers will get lost in the spectacular sweep of the production design and cinematography of the extended night sequences which Moore notes incorporated the Gaelic saying "cobhoh an dolra which means that nature is understanding your mood, that nature has a sympathy for you... what a better way to reflect Max Payne's mood than to have everything dark or shadowy until finally, at the end, the sun breaks into his life. The winter is his ally; this is a guy who hides in shadows, darkness envelopes him everywhere."

And in stark contrast to the darkness is the gorgeous usage of snow which producer Julie Yorn described as being brought out "to create a kind of epic, operatic feeling, in the way it interacts with Max and defines some of his actions." The result is beyond compare and all the more impressive when we're shown a flashback to the day Payne's life was changed forever by the crime which is filmed in nostalgic yellow and gold tones as he smiles (for the only time in the enter film) entering his house without realizing what awaits him.

In this and in all the rest, the film itself is eye-candy, succeeding on a purely visual level even when logically and intellectually sometimes it borders on the overly simplistic and or ridiculous at times, as the mystery is easily solved by the typical viewer less than twenty minutes in.

While it does seem timely and I admired a few of the plot twists including the pharmaceutical and military threads woven throughout and it's always great to see supporting stars like Donal Logue and Beau Bridges in something (even when their roles are minimal overall), structurally it's weak at best but elevated to sheer amazement when transferred to Fox Blu-ray.

Fox-- as they did with Transporter 2-- seem to be able to improve even the most mediocre films as though they were epics based on the excellent grasp they have of their technology. While the 2-disc Blu-ray edition offers viewers the chance to watch it in either its original PG-13 form or an unrated extended cut, also featuring audio commentary by the director, production designer and visual effects supervisor, it also boasts fans the opportunity to take advantage of the digital download feature which refreshingly is both Mac and PC compatible.

This probably comes at the great appreciation of the director who reveals in a mostly ho-hum and somewhat odd two-part making-of-featurette his fear that no one cares about extras or DVDs anymore since sales are down and people "just pirate 'em all."

However, Fox tries to prove him wrong by offering cutting edge technology during the film's Blu presentation itself offering players with the capability, the chance to use a picture-in-picture BonusView that screens the film and Behind the Scenes making of images with the director as it runs, along with a bonus Michelle Payne Graphic Novel.

Although one of the real "surprises" comes via the film itself as I must advise you to either sit through or fast forward the end credits in order to catch an extra scene featuring Wahlberg and Kunis that definitely foreshadows the possibility of a sequel... depending most likely of course, on DVD and Blu-ray sales, rentals, and demand performances.

Referenced & Related

The Happening (2008)

Check out The Happening's Trailer, Video Clips & Photos



- Buffalo Springfield Lyrics

Less than ten hours after I watched The Happening, the eerie new film from director M. Night Shyamalan-- which incidentally is one of his strongest works in years—lyrics started flooding my head. “There’s something happening here/What it is ain’t exactly clear/There’s a man with a gun over there/Telling me I’ve gotta beware,” and of course the chorus of “You’ve got stop/hey what’s that sound/everybody look what’s going down.” It took me twenty minutes of cyber-sleuthing to realize that the song’s title isn’t in the lyrics themselves—written by Stephen Stills, the popular Buffalo Springfield 60’s anthem “For What It’s Worth,” that’s been used in countless Vietnam sequences and films of and about that era from Coming Home to Forrest Gump somehow seemed like it was nearly narrating the entire feature crafted by Shyamalan.

In The Happening, “there’s something happening here,” indeed and it isn’t clear at all what it is. From the start of the film—his first R rated feature-- a young woman sitting in Central Park suddenly loses her train of thought as well as her ability to think clearly and before we know it, she’s grabbed the long knitting needle styled hair pin from her up-do and stabbed it directly into her neck. From there, it just gets stranger as construction workers tumble off of buildings as if they were raindrops, cars crash into trees, buses into lakes, and a policeman shoots himself and afterward his gun is used for the same purpose by every passerby. A rash of suicide?

Obviously it’s some kind of attack and the first line of thinking falls under the one we’d immediately leap to which is that it’s the result of terrorists once again catching New Yorkers off guard but when there’s no real evidence of this and we get the sense that it’s airborne, people begin wondering just how exactly they can outrun something they don’t quite understand. A slow march towards gloom ensues—there aren’t scenes of irrational screaming and panic for there are no bogeymen lurking around corners, alien ships crashing down, or whatever that creature from Cloverfield was. Nor is there a direct nuclear military testing site nearby that may have explained what created those larger than life monsters in Stephen King’s The Mist or the medical experimentation gone awry in I Am Legend. Shyamalan is ultimately new age here, arguing in his most quintessentially vague way that perhaps we are all to blame--that it’s in the wind-- and that we’re all culpable since it may be emanating from trees and plants.

There’s been a quote attributed to Einstein that if honeybees were to disappear, men would only have roughly four years left to live and incidentally it’s the topic of discussion in the classroom of Pennsylvania high school science teacher Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) who has the exact quote written on his blackboard. While his students seem disinterested in the decreasing numbers of honeybees, it’s obviously the thesis with which Shyamalan is working as he reveals in a Behind-the-Scenes DVD extra that originally he’d intended to call the film “The Green Effect.”

While a horror film about global warming may sound cheesy on paper and one can do no better than Al Gore’s fact based An Inconvenient Truth, it makes a great set-up for Shyamalan’s newest universe that finds New York residents being evacuated and Pennsylvanians like Moore, his wife Alma (a wasted and poorly written Zooey Deschanel), Elliott’s colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) and his young daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez) deciding to flee urban areas for sparsely populated communities.

As the “event” spreads from New York into Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, they try to outrun it, putting together theories of survival by addressing the variables—possibly deciding to travel in fewer numbers to more desolate locations but will that be enough? In a heart-wrenching scene, after Julian loses cell phone contact with his wife, he entrusts his daughter to his friends and although he tells them he’ll be coming right back with Jess’ mommy, we just know that he won’t return.

A sense of doom pervades but unlike other films of Shyamalan’s, he prefers not to offer anything concrete in the way of answers almost to maddening effect. There’s a perfunctory possible theory put forth near the end of the film but then-- true to his directorial nature-- he has to spook his audience one last time, reminding us of the inevitably abysmal fate of mankind. Since the film seems like such a pessimistic parable, Shyamalan noted on the DVD that he wanted to fill it with as much light as possible in casting likable and buoyant leads such as Mark Wahlberg in a role he wrote expressly for the actor. Ironically however, Wahlberg revealed he ended up modeling his characterization after Night himself.

And Wahlberg anchors the entire film, elevating it throughout as we encounter one freakishly eccentric and mean-spirited backwoods character after another as they discover gunfire and the wrath of a wicked older woman straight out of the oeuvre of Stephen King, yet Deschanel looks as though she’d rather be anywhere but in the film, which is no surprise as she’s given absolutely nothing to do and her entire arc is in revealing to her husband that—and I kid you not-- she once ate dessert with another man.

Despite its flaws, it isn’t as atrocious as some critics would lead you to believe and it’s a masterwork compared to the disastrous Lady in the Water that seriously made us question Night’s filmmaking ability overall. Still, nowhere near as perfectly fine-tuned as The Sixth Sense—the tragedy is that he’s been unable to top himself, no matter how hard he tries and while he’s undoubtedly an incredible talent, it may do him good to get out of his usual screenwriting trappings to try something entirely different altogether, instead of feeling a near obligation to “surprise” us in the end over and over and over again.

While those of us who saw The Village realized we could solve the mystery within five minutes (especially given its Twilight Zone like set-up), and other than a few great performances, Signs was pretty ridiculous, it’s a shame to learn that as I heard on the radio his next project is slated to be a sequel to the overrated Unbreakable. While I applauded that film’s intention in pursuing the idea of an ordinary man with extraordinary gifts (perhaps the creators of TV’s Heroes could’ve hired Night to save the series from tanking in its second season), Night’s ultimate thesis that some of us are just born strong and therefore good whereas others are weak (or disabled) and bad as repeated throughout was an affront to filmgoers everywhere. And sadly, it shows up once again in the beginning of The Happening as one of the earliest lines of dialogue involves two girls throwing around the word “crippled.”

While The Happening redeems itself, it would be great to have Night move away from some of these recurring tendencies and themes, since with a much better written female lead (always a struggle for Night, save for Toni Collete in Sixth Sense) and a tighter finale, it may have been his strongest work since the one that’s become synonymous with his name. However, this being said, I do applaud his Hitchcockian restraint in building up fear instead of simply reveling in the gore of the situation by cutting away from the most shockingly violent moments—a decision you can witness just based on the first ten minutes alone.

And as all film professors will tell you, it’s nearly worse to “not see” something and the master of withholding details (whether it’s the true meaning of “I See Dead People” etc.) proves that he knows what to hold and show when it comes to R rated horror. As he himself shares on the fully loaded DVD, which contains numerous featurettes, fear is always based on the unknown when one loses their bearings and panics and on film, Night strives to take that same feeling and multiply it by ten. In other words, in this new DVD, “there’s something happening here/what it is ain’t exactly clear,” but you can bet it keeps you riveted all the same… and you’ll never look at trees the same way again... or come to think of it, bees.