Three Kings (1999) w/ Kevin Fox | Bang-Bang Podcast Crossover | Ep. 223

The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

Free preview episode cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

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Further Reading

Kevin’s Website

“The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

“Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

“The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

“The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont