George Clooney

by Mark Browning

  In the motel, Foley wipes steam from the bathroom mirror, revealing his torso but also a sense that he is trying to work out his feelings. Meeting Sisco has disorientated him. Like a fantasy, she appears in his bathroom, as if willed by his thought. He appears completely vulnerable (perhaps part of what she finds attractive about him) but his pose is broken as he opens his eyes and hauls her into the tub (shot from directly above) with Sisco clearly not resisting. We then cut to Sisco in hospital, subverting expectations and suggesting that this was actually her fantasy. Scott’s script clearly describes this as her dream, but Soderbergh denies us conventional fictive markers like a wobbly screen, making his audience work to piece the narrative together.6

  Later in the hotel, we have a glimpse of the norm that Sisco has to tolerate as a sequence of well-meaning but uninvited men approach her. She looks at her reflection and the snow falling in the darkness outside (a computer-generated effect) as another man appears, his head cropped from view. The underlighting of the table, the fact that Foley is now smooth-shaven, smartly dressed, and not drunk, the close-ups of his eyes, and his romantic gesture of placing his hand over hers—all of these factors work in his favor. The following love scene is conveyed with freeze frames before we fade to black. From trunk to motel room to here, the relationship has progressed to a more complete consummation. There is also a use of flash-forwards to the love scene itself, like Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1972), intercut with shots of them still in the dining room to convey a disorientating sense of intense sensuality.

  Particularly key is the earlier scene in Detroit, of the gang lead by Maurice Miller (Don Cheadle) minus Foley, carrying out a horrific attack on a rival dealer. Soderbergh gives the viewer only a few, brief distorted images of the violence and in a subsequent scene images of the police investigating the crime scene. The full power of the scene is writ large on the shocked and numbed expression of Glenn Michaels (Steve Zahn) on the gang’s return, their nonchalance contrasting with his obvious petrification. Clooney’s role then is of a criminal but is of a different league to the sadistic gang who brutally murder another prisoner, kill the victims of their housebreaking, and plan to rape Ripley’s maid, Midge (Nancy Allen) in the final attack. Foley uses firearms initially only to threaten, and eventually chooses to fight back against the gang rather than take flight with Buddy and removes the bullets before confronting Sisco, provoking her to shoot him, albeit not fatally. The final scene with Sisco, revealed as the driver of Foley’s prison van, leaves open whether she only wants to see him, talk to him, make him aware she will wait for him, or help him escape once more.

  It is Foley’s ability to observe and plan that sets him apart from his other inmates. Like Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) in The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994), Foley uses his learning to his own advantage (literally flattening one of Maurice’s henchmen in prison with a book). We see him watching the set up boxing matches, noting the potential target of Ripley (Albert Brooks), so that when he is outside prison it is his quick thinking that keeps him at liberty. In the scene in the library, where Miller tries to intimidate Ripley, it is not until Foley speaks, calmly complaining about the noise, that we are even aware he is in the scene at all. In the final raid, he is the one who finds Ripley and the hiding place of the diamonds (the fish tank) rather than being distracted by the appeal of food (Bob) who tries to empty the refrigerator or sex (Kenneth) (Isaiah Washington) attempting to rape the maid.

  The film might include some typical features of the crime genre (a robbery, a fixed boxing match in prison, a climactic crime), but in each case Frank’s script and Soderbergh’s realization of it give us more. Even in prison, Michaels is so feeble that he cannot lift any of the weights in the open-air gym area. The nonlinear narrative effectively blends flashbacks to prison signaled by captions and later drops scenes unannounced into the narrative that can then be placed in order retrospectively—for example, Foley’s disastrous interview ends with anger on the streets and then a glance up at the bank, last seen in the opening sequence. Such a structure makes the film harder work but more rewarding for the viewer as well as explaining in this instance why Foley seemed a little underprepared, since his decision to rob the bank was spontaneous, and also reflecting that this is what he really is. Like Butch and Sundance, he tries to go straight but circumstances seem pitted against him. In crime films, even when he plays someone on the wrong side of the law, Clooney’s character is contrasted with a greater brutality, like Maurice Miller and his gang here, and performs some final sacrificial action to redeem himself (killing Kenneth and, along with Sisco, shooting the gang, respectively).

  Three Kings (David O. Russell, 1999)

  Barlow:

  Are we shooting people or what?

  David O. Russell’s account of the chaos in the wake of the ceasefire at the end of the 1991 Gulf War places Clooney in the role of Major Archie Gates, leading a band of soldiers to appropriate some of Saddam Hussein’s gold. Clooney found Russell’s methods difficult, like his constant filming, even during rehearsals and meetings, leading to a well-documented confrontation over Russell’s treatment of an extra. Russell was under pressure himself from Warner Brothers, who were concerned at how overtly political the film was becoming, and original writer John Ridley, who was contesting Russell’s scriptwriting credit, but Clooney has yet to work with him again.

  Derek Hill states that “the moral choices … are sophisticated, paradoxical and messy in a way that is rare for such a star vehicle,”1 and certainly the initial presentation of the U.S. military is hardly flattering. Troy Barlow (Mark Wahlberg) approaches a figure standing on the roof of a house, representing the dilemma of any soldier in armed combat. His colleagues barely seem prepared for such decisions: there are two whip pans to other soldiers, standing in open sight, one trying to remove sand from the eye of another. The man is at some distance, he does present a weapon, and without the benefit of combat experience, Barlow’s mistake in firing is perhaps understandable. Less sensitive, his fellow soldiers, represented by Conrad Vig (Spike Jonze), take pictures and congratulate him for having shot “a raghead.” The men seem ill-prepared and ignorant of the political and military situation.

  The scenes of celebration at the end of the war, represented by the pumping iron, lazing on huge air mats, the water fights, the posing with guns and flags for photos, and the presence of Snap’s “The Power,” all seem like a fraternity house party, disconnected from any notion of suffering. The camera whips past a group of prisoners, representing a reality that these soldiers, and we the viewers, must soon face. At this stage, Barlow is happy to dress up as an Arab: for him, it is just a form of fancy dress. It is a sequence of joyful, albeit insensitive, male bonding and a nod to Wahlberg’s dance moves that are shown more fully in Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997). Reporter Adriana Cruz (Nora Dunn) is trying to put a more articulate spin on what she is witnessing, describing how the war was about “exorcising Vietnam with a clear moral imperative,” but an interviewee answers more bluntly, “We liberated Kuwait.” Cruz, as an experienced journalist, is looking for a story, searching for meaning in what she sees but there is the suggestion that such meaning is absent here.

  The main characters are introduced via freeze frame and a brief piece of on-screen text that appears as if typed. Vig, inexpertly performing karate moves, “wants to be Troy Barlow.” His admiration, bordering on hero worship, is his prime characteristic, along with his blind stupidity, both of which contribute to his death later, running to help his friend. Gates is shown in typical action, having sex with a junior reporter. The fact that the woman instantly fires a work-related question at him seconds after they have finished suggests this was just a meaningless diversion for both of them. Like Cruz, she too is looking for a story but will use other means to get it.

  We have in the group a cross section of the military. Gates is a high-ranking, experienced officer in an elite section of the army; Barlow is a young officer (Sergeant Fi
rst Class) with leadership potential, trying to do and say the right thing (his action later in trying to stop Iraqi children running onto mines is typical); Chief Elgin (Ice Cube) is a willing foot soldier, representing an Afro-Caribbean demographic, following orders and the guidance of God, and Vig represents the lowest level of army recruit, without a high school education but also given to moments of literal insight denied the others by their upbringing. The officer class seem barely in control of their men. Captain Van Meter (Holt McCallany) is unaware of the men getting alcohol and later, in conjunction with Colonel Horn (Mykelti Williamson), they seem farcically unaware of the whereabouts of several soldiers and key items of equipment. However, perhaps the true measure of Horn and Van Meter is that at the border confrontation later they support the humanitarian efforts to save the group of Iraqi dissidents; that is, they do what good they can.

  There is also a linguistic war in progress. Incomprehensible orders are barked simultaneously through two megaphones at cowering Iraqi prisoners. Vig unthinkingly mentions a “dune-coon,” and when reprimanded by Elgin states that the mixture of “pro-Saudi, anti-Iraq type language” is confusing and adds that the captain (Barlow) uses these terms. One way in which Clooney’s character seems separate from his men, apart from coming from another division, is his refusal to use such terms. His rank as a senior Special Forces officer allows him a certain freedom: he walks, unchallenged, into the tent and demands the map. Quickly, he recognizes that he cannot cut the men who found it out of the deal and instantly takes them into his confidence. They become the team and he assumes the mantle of pack leader and chief strategist in the planning of a robbery, as he would do later as Danny Ocean.

  There seems a fundamental childishness to many of the antics of the soldiers, like Troy and Elgin arguing first about football teams and later about whether a particular brand of car has a convertible. Gates accepts that he must use soldiers of all ranks, and he shows great forbearance in enduring actions and words that test his patience severely, asking Barlow only, in relation to Vig, “Are you able to control him?” He drives out into the desert (as if he is the only one old enough to take control of the vehicle), a tape of Bach on the stereo, with the soldiers like kids on vacation, acting up in the back. Like McGill looking after Delmar in O Brother, Clooney plays a character who takes a paternal care over those much further down the educational ladder, again driving a car with child-like adults. Here, he indulges the game with the football as a kind of version of clay pigeon shooting, until one wired with explosives almost blows the truck off the road at which he pulls up and administers a calmly worded telling-off. He responds to their wishes to see some action by calmly leading them a few paces away from the vehicle to show them bodies, half buried in the sand.

  The character of Vig is partly present for comic relief, imagining bullion is “them little cubes you put in hot water to make soup.” Like a small child, he has a very short concentration span, asking apropos of nothing whether you have to cut off someone’s ears to get into Special Forces, which he terms “SF.” Unlike Barlow and Elgin, whose mundane civilian existences we see in rapid montage form, cutting between Barlow dealing with an exploding toner cartridge to Elgin loading airport luggage (explaining his later knowledge of how best to carry the gold), Gates has no other life—he is a professional soldier. This also links Gates with Vig, who also has no meaningful existence outside the military (except for a snapshot of Vig, firing a gun at a range of soft toys outside a decrepit trailer).

  Gate lectures them about sepsis, miming a gun with his finger, and pretending to let off a round at Barlow. This apparently childish action, however, is accompanied by realistic sound effects of the bullet flying and a reaction shot of Barlow, apparently hit. We fade to a close-up of Barlow’s internal organs, quickly filled with bright green bile, before Russell plays the film backward and the damage is miraculously undone. Back at the opening of the film, a title card explains that the makers of the film “used visual distortion and unusual colors in some scenes.” This suggests the film’s audience might be confused by such expressionistic devices, clumsily underlining “they intentionally used these unconventional techniques to enhance the emotional intensity of the storyline.” This scene, demonstrating the damage that a single bullet can do, is one such scene, but it seems so stylistically out of sync with the film around it that it functions less as a powerful moment on its own than as a foreshadowing of what can happen if you are shot (as happens to Vig and Barlow later).

  Clooney’s character shows quick thinking in rapidly devising an elaborate cover story to throw Cruz off the scent. However, his plan to practice their approach to the bunker using a cow as a prop proves less inspired, frightening the cow onto a cluster bomb. The explosion certainly reflects the horrors of what such weapons can do, how dangerous the Iraqi landscape has been left, and the simple truth that it could have been them; but the ensuing gore, as they are splattered with remains that rain down on them in slow motion with the head crashing on the hood of the truck, appears primarily to provide cinematic spectacle. As Vig states, it is “like a cartoon.” With a Bart Simpson toy on the hood, there is a constant presence of cartoonishness (in emotional responses, in action sequences, and in language) to counterpoint Gates’s attempt at injecting some realism.

  Before the truck reaches the compound where they suspect the gold is hidden, Bach is replaced by the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around” and we have clear shots of the U.S. flag on the back of the truck. There is the sense of exhilaration and self-belief that they are coming as liberators (albeit of the gold rather than the oppressed people). Footage of civilians, especially children following the truck, creates the sense of a rapturous welcome; but more rapid cutting, including increasing use of point-of-view shots from the truck, and shaky handheld shots of the process of tying up the guards suggest the speedy unraveling of the situation. Barlow is soon faced with the reality of unexpected reactions from mothers holding babies, begging directly for help, to a man who tries to hug him rather than offering any resistance.

  Generic clichés are also questioned. Breaking a door down with one’s shoulder is seen as ridiculous as Barlow just bounces off and Gates has to kick it in. A rocket launched at a tanker leads to the three heroes diving to the ground, expecting an explosion (shown in Russell’s ubiquitous slow motion), but instead of gas the vehicle contains milk, which floods the square, knocking them over. In such an inverted, chaotic situation, where mothers try to scoop up milk from the sand, access to food is the new weaponry. What starts out as a heist turns into an aid mission and one with mixed results. Gates’s group have to throw a man off their jeep and push back begging crowds, as they leave the compound empty-handed on their first raid.

  Gates brandishes a copy of the ceasefire agreement in all the following confrontations, appearing to put faith in the rule of law, although this is just a façade. In the second raid, he claims to be taking back what was stolen from Kuwait, but this cloaking in moral authority fulfills only the first part of the Robin Hood equation: he is stealing from the rich but not planning on giving it to the poor (at least, not yet). He lectures Barlow and Elgin when they start to rifle through jewelry, claiming “We’re not thieves,” but this has only the veneer of respectability and is patently not true. Gates holds a pistol to the head of a guard, demanding that he reveal the whereabouts of the gold. As the all-important door is found, we do not know exactly how brutal or unprincipled Gates actually is.

  Gates’s acceptance of the Iraqi officer’s offer to help carry the gold clearly compromises him morally: the civilians will be butchered once the Americans leave. To make this clear, the wife of the chief dissident, Amir Abdulah (Cliff Curtis), is executed on the orders of the officer. Gates’s key reaction is to put his head on the wheel. He knows now that they cannot remain disengaged from the situation. He gets out of the jeep and walks toward his enemy, which could be seen as an act of bravery or that he has been forced into taking a moral lead; either way, he clear
ly takes command.

  Quickly disabling the guard holding the husband of the murdered woman, we have lengthy shots of the grieving family, a little girl in particular in a powerful microcosmic image of the results of U.S. policy. This is certainly stated explicitly by the rebels in the cave, turning on Gates for starting a war and then not supporting the uprising. In miniature, Gates’s actions reflect the wider military and political processes: by killing Iraqi soldiers, they have broken the ceasefire (the very agreement that Gates had trumpeted on entry) and now must bear the consequences, which involve a responsibility to those they have liberated (here, taking the rebels to safety at the Iranian border). There is a tense stand-off as we cut between the two groups of men both with guns drawn, almost western style, with the tension focused on the two leaders. The battle of wills between Gates and the Iraqi officer becomes more physical as Gates grabs the other man’s gun so that it fires a round into his foot. At this stage, Gates has shown moderation, limited force, and some statesmanship in taking a moral stance.

  However, his subsequent shooting of the Iraqi officer is problematic. Undoubtedly, the man is cruel and has ordered the murder of the dissident’s wife, but it is debatable whether Gates as a senior officer is right to act in a way that can only be seen as revenge, shooting the man in the head in the same way (and Russell making the parallel clear with slow motion in both events) even though the man was offering no direct threat to the Americans and could have been just tied up. There is even calculation here as Gates holds his gun beneath the man’s chin for a second or two; that is, it is a morally compromised act, not performed in the heat of the moment. A low-angle shot of Gates looking down as clouds race nonnaturalistically overhead produces the vision of the dying man and elevates Gates to the God-like status of the giver of life and death. Perhaps there is the implication of divine intervention, of Gates saving innocent lives (and of Barlow miraculously surviving being shot by his Kevlar vest), but if Gates is a savior, he is a very Machiavellian one. Having made this change of role, despite Barlow’s repeated call to “stick to the plan,” Gates now orders the political prisoners into the truck, which they commandeer. In a moment, the mission has changed from one of acquisition to one of rescue.