"Three Kings"

Two weeks away from retirement and stuck in the middle of the mine-strewn Iraqi desert with the rest of the bored Army, rakish Archie is looking out for No. 1. So when he discovers that a trio of younger soldiers -- Chief (Ice Cube), Troy (Mark Wahlberg) and Vig (Spike Jonze) -- has recovered a mysterious map hidden in an Iraqi POWs nether regions, he sees an entrepreneurial opportunity. Believing that the bunker shown on the map houses not just looted luxury items but millions in gold bullion stolen from the Kuwaiti sheiks, Archie proposes a secret four-man guerrilla raid into Iraqi territory to make the big score. Meanwhile, another soldier (Jamie Kennedy) is told to lead Adrianna -- whom Archie is supposed to chaperone -- on a day-long wild-goose chase.

Well, anybody who's ever seen a movie will realize that this scheme is headed for trouble and that before long Archie and his gang will have to make the choice between greed and honor. When they reach a remote village and find the bunker crammed with Cuisinarts, TVs and cheap stereo equipment -- and, yes, suitcases full of gold bars -- the Iraqi troops offer only token resistance and seem mysteriously eager to surrender the gold and get the intruders out of there. That's because the bunker also contains a torture chamber and several imprisoned dissidents. Our heroes have stumbled into the middle of a civil war, in which the Republican Guard is systematically wiping out anti-Saddam insurgents, who are under the painfully false impression that the Americans will support their rebellion. Once Archie sees a village woman shot dead in front of him, we know what's coming. He may be a Special Forces commando, but as with any Clooney character, his sense of chivalry easily overmatches his instinct for self-preservation.

Clooney's virile, slightly dissolute charm is intact throughout "Three Kings," but I think he's wasted without a woman to slither around (and Adrianna is more a plot device than a character). The real revelation here is Wahlberg, who conclusively proves that his performance in "Boogie Nights" wasn't a fluke. His agile athleticism is no surprise, but Wahlberg also imbues Troy with surprising emotional depth. When he is captured and tortured by a U.S.-trained Iraqi interrogator whose son has been killed in the allied bombing, Troy genuinely seems to be weeping almost as much for the other man's anguish as for his own. This is an exquisitely painful scene, heaped high with ironies, that represents Russell's work at its finest. The torturer addresses Troy as "bro" and "my main man" and wants to talk about Michael Jackson before forcing Troy to drink motor oil, an allegory that would seem forced and clever if it weren't for the awful, tangible reality the two actors bring to the scene.

Jonze, best known as a director of music videos (and of the upcoming feature "Being John Malkovich"), is also impressive as the lunkhead Dallas redneck Vig, who seems genuinely mystified when Chief tells him not to use terms like "dune coon" and "sand nigger" to refer to Arabs. (But, hey, screenwriters -- even these days they don't let you in the Army if you haven't been to high school.) Vig's mostly in the movie as comic relief, but Jonze is eventually able to work around the jokes enough to demonstrate that even this bigoted idiot has some decency at his core. As in his other movie roles, Ice Cube is a solid, stoical presence and something of a cipher. Russell's script doesn't really give Chief enough to do, and in the rapper-turned-actor sweepstakes, Cube's luminous eyes and unflappable demeanor are only good enough for second place behind the big-cat grace of LL Cool J (terrific in this summer's "In Too Deep").

Russell keeps the demented action sequences and peculiar visual jokes coming so fast we don't quite notice that "Three Kings," like almost every Hollywood action movie, finally depends on the notion that American men -- if not their government -- are a morally superior breed. There really is no other reason why a group of soldiers bent on plunder should risk their haul to help a bunch of rebels and refugees whose situation they don't really understand. But maybe that's not worth complaining about; if "Three Kings" is a fantasy in the end, at least it's a juicily enjoyable one. If it lets its characters evade judgment too easily, it makes no apologies for the outrage of warfare, no matter who wages it or why. Its parade of strange images -- a desert convoy of Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs, refugees struggling through a cloud of poison gas, an Iraqi soldier watching the Rodney King beating on TV -- will linger in your memory long after its formulaic plot details have faded.

• View blog reactions