In this week's New York Times Sunday magazine, A.O. Scott takes a look at Hollywood's political activism, looking at the new slate of movies from George Clooney, including "Good Night, And Good Luck." Towards the end of the piece, Scott discusses one of Clooney's better, though overlooked, movies -- Three Kings.

That movie, released in the fall of 1999, looks back at the first gulf war and forward as well. A bit of a disappointment at the box office, it has had a vibrant afterlife, especially as the geopolitical situation has given it the air of prophecy. The movie is a fast-moving, funny and appallingly violent meditation on, among other things, the contradictory nature of American power. It betrays some of the liberal ambivalence of the Clinton era - an eagerness to believe that America could be the exemplar and enforcer of democratic and humane ideals checked by a habitual suspicion of ulterior motives. Gates, who sets out with a ragged band of misfit soldiers to steal Kuwaiti bullion he hears is stashed in a bunker, embodies both arrogance and decency. The arc of his character takes him from self-serving nihilism to heroic fellow-feeling, a progression that enables the movie's uplifting, somewhat implausible ending. Archie Gates is an updating of the Humphrey Bogart wartime hero: a cynic called to a higher purpose who turns his low cunning into virtue. Gates also recalls the insider-outsider, alienated heroes of the 70's, a man at odds with the institution in which he finds himself embedded but who turns out, half-unwittingly, to be the truest defender of its principles.

After reading this article, I went back to watch the film for the first time since it hit the theaters. Scott is entirely correct about the movie's "vibrant afterlife;" Three Kings effectively captures Iraqi feelings towards the United States in the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War, and moreover offers nuance of the situation that is often lacking from contemporary coverage of the current war. If you have the time, check out the film. It's well worth the two hours and few dollars.