Four American soldiers combine to liberate a missing shipment of gold in the chaos of Iraq after the first Gulf War.
This is a bold, even brazen attempt to get to grips with the complexities and hypocrisies of the US intervention in Iraq in the early 90s. David O Russell’s stinging film marries anarchic black comedy, action adventure tropes, and cutting edge technique. Plus a big dose of star power.
Do the mercenary motivations of George Clooney and his Desert Stormers function as a metaphor for wider political imperatives? How could they not? Certainly there is nothing reassuring about the Americans’ racist attitudes to the Iraqis. This was the most vivid portrait of the new theatre of war Hollywood had produced to that point: impersonal, high-tech, highly mediated and little understood. It’s a high point in Russell’s erratic but always ambitious career, which went on to include Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter and American Hustle.
The screening on Sunday Aug 23 will conclude with a free screening of Werner Herzog’s 54-minute documentary Lessons of Darkness (1992)
Some kind weird masterpiece, a screw-loose war picture that sends action and humor crashing head-on into each other and spinning off into political anger
Roger Ebert
It remains the most caustic anti-war movie of this generation.
David Edelstein, The New York Times
Russell not only has designed an action-adventure laced with incendiary humor but a movie that wants to explore race, politics, war, the media and U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East. In large measure, he pulls it off with breathtaking aplomb.
Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
Media Partner
David O Russell
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze
USA
1999
English
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Credits
Producer
Charles Roven, Paul Junger Witt, Edward L. McDonnell
Screenwriter
David O. Russell, John Ridley
Cinematography
Newton Thomas Sigel
Editor
Robert K. Lambert
Original Music
Carter Burwell
Production Design
Catherine Hardwicke
90s, Baby!
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Rushmore
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Saving Private Ryan
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The Thin Red Line
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The Matrix
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Lessons of Darkness
Werner Herzog's unforgettable documentary reveals the unfolding disaster of the Kuwaitian oil fields in flames in 1991 as a sweeping inferno of mesmerizing power.
Office Space
This razor sharp comedy from Mike Judge (King of the Hill) captures the indignities of life as a wage slave with rare acumen and caustic wit. Evidently the impending millennial bug weighed heavily on people's minds back in 1999.
The Sixth Sense
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Beau Travail
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Three Kings
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Magnolia
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