FALL SNEAKS : The Loose Cannons : The stars of ‘Three Kings’ say it will ruffle some political feathers, but it’s all worth it to them.

In January 1991, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ordered his troops to invade Kuwait, a coalition of U.S.-led forces launched an intensive air, ground and sea attack to expel Iraq and restore Kuwaiti independence.

With the largest overseas U.S. combat-troop deployment since the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War severely crippled Saddam’s war machine, leaving tens of thousands of Iraqis dead or wounded. Thousands were taken prisoner. Americans threw victory parades, and the military took great pride in its accomplishments.

There was only one problem. The Iraqi despot remained in power. Coalition troops under the command of Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf were barred from rolling into Baghdad.

In this setting, the Gulf War is reexamined in a new Warner Bros. film called “Three Kings,” written and directed by David O. Russell, whose prior films include “Spanking the Monkey” and “Flirting With Disaster.”

Told with surrealistic dark humor and edited in a frenetic, breakneck style, “Three Kings” stars George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube in an unorthodox, rollicking, buddy-caper movie--with political overtones.

Scheduled to open Oct. 1, the film depicts American GIs as bored, disoriented and eager to get back home. Clooney plays Special Forces Maj. Archie Gates, a career soldier disillusioned because America, as it had with Vietnam, does not want to finish what it set out to do. Wahlberg’s character, Sgt. Troy Barlow, is an Army Reserve soldier with a wife and new baby back home who believes in the mission. Cube plays Staff Sgt. Chief Elgin, a God-fearing baggage handler from Detroit whose stoic commitment to his responsibilities earns him respect.

When they discover a map hidden on a surrendering Iraqi soldier, the GIs take off in search of a huge cache of gold Hussein is reputed to have stolen from Kuwait.

As the soldiers raid bunker after bunker, they come face-to-face with Iraqis--who had been encouraged by the West to rise up against Hussein--being rounded up, tortured and killed by Hussein’s Republican Guard. The “Three Kings” must decide whether they should drop what they are doing and help the Iraqi civilians escape.

In a recent interview at the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, Clooney, Wahlberg and Cube sat down to discuss the film, the war and the risks of making a political movie in the nervous corporate climate of today’s Hollywood.

Question: You play three GIs who go AWOL right after the Gulf War. You find a cache of gold that Saddam Hussein has stolen from Kuwait and hidden in the desert. Is this based on a real story?

Clooney: Were there spoils of war? Saddam certainly took a lot of things that he took from Kuwait. We didn’t go over there and check out the bunkers, but everybody that went said there were tons of that stuff.

Wahlberg: It’s obvious that it’s there. Kuwait is one of the richest countries in the world. Everybody knew what Saddam had done.

Q: As a politically informed action-adventure, this movie treads where others usually choose not to go.

Clooney: There is a danger . . . as we go through this [publicity] process, that Cube and Mark and Spike and I, and David, too, are going to suddenly become experts on the Gulf War. . . . We’ll be asked our opinions. Remember this, because in the political climate of [George W. Bush], and since we sort of go after the George Bush policy in this a little bit, that’s going to become a hotbed. So, suddenly we are going to become these experts on something that we don’t know enough about to be the experts on. We know some.

Wahlberg: I thought I knew a lot about what was going on. I paid attention to what was being said and shown in the media as much as anybody else, but the second I got on the set I was privileged to so much more information.

Clooney: I knew some of what happened in the script was real. We knew that we told the Shiites [we’d back them up], and we knew that we didn’t back them and they all got massacred. Schwarzkopf and those guys gave away the fly zone and let those guys have helicopters inside the borders and assassinate all these people that were throwing rocks at the end of the war.

Cube: I like how the movie shifts gears. It’s like going from comedy, then it goes into the heist, and then there’s this action and then [an Iraqi mother] gets shot [by Hussein’s Republican Guards] and it turns into a whole different thing.

Clooney: Well, the great thing is it’s not an anti-American movie, either. It doesn’t piss all over American policy in general. It just says we should know more. . . . All of the [film’s] military advisors were there, and they all said, ‘This is how it happened. We had to stand by and let the Republican Guard . . . kick the [expletive] out of a people that we told to rise up and overthrow the government.

Q: So the movie does take a political position?

Clooney: It’s a political movie like “MASH” was a political movie.

Q: This kind of peels back the layers and gives people some idea what the Gulf War was really like.

Cube: I think this movie is very, very American because if you had a chance to score, as an American, you’re going to go for it. You know what I’m saying? If you’ve got a chance to get into a fight--Americans are always down for that. You don’t see too many Americans running from a good fight. And then helping people at the end. When it’s all said and done, we stopped thinking about ourselves and thought about the people that we were helping.

Q: There is a point in the movie, George, where you make that decision to help the Iraqi civilians. A mother is shot in the head at point-blank range while her daughter and husband are looking on.

Clooney: As an audience, if I step back and watch it, it’s pretty gruesome violence. It’s also the most responsibly violent movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. David’s thing was every bullet counts. You don’t just see the effect of a gun going off, you see what it does to your body. Literally, your insides. You see what it does to the family. You see everything.

Q: And the characters you play?

Clooney: I’m a choreographer. [laughter]

Q: Who exactly is Archie Gates?

Clooney: Archie Gates is sort of based a lot on this guy, [Sgt. Maj.] Jim Parker, who was a technical advisor who gave David a lot of the stuff he used in the script. He also died of cancer while we were shooting. Great guy. And, interestingly, he’d fought in a lot of different wars. Gates has been through a war [in Vietnam] where we didn’t complete it and came home and felt abandoned by his country. And now, he has sort of been promised, “This time we’re going in and the country is going to back you and we’re going to get this one and do it the right way,” and he believed it. What happens is, the minute we crossed those borders, we stopped. And we said, “OK, we win.” Just because we said, “We win,” not because we finished the job we set out to do. And this character feels abandoned again. So, now, he says, “Screw it. I’m taking care of me.” And he goes and finds the gold. That’s sort of his character.

Q: Your character, Cube?

Cube: Chief is basically from Detroit. You know, seen a lot of violence. Very religious man. Basically in the Army Reserves and making a little money on the side and isn’t expecting to be caught up in the war. And he gets caught up in the war. He relies on the training, but he is going to rely on the same thing that got him through the streets of Detroit, his Lord and savior Jesus Christ. That’s where he’s coming from. He’s going to take the training and use it perfectly. You know, he’s not going to do his own thing. I think Chief is somebody you want on your right hand.

Q: But what happens? He changes too. He agrees to go along with it.

Cube: He has seen so much death on the streets of his home, so he’s going to take life the same way. As it comes. He’s not going to over-think tomorrow or over-think yesterday. He’s going to take it as it comes. And, if this is an opportunity for him, he’s going to take it.

Q: And Mark?

Wahlberg: Barlow is just like Chief. Instead of being from the ‘hood, he’s from the trailer park. I think Troy Barlow is a guy who is trying to do the right thing and now has a family, and a lot of his outlook has changed because his wife has had a baby. I think he also is a guy who thinks he knows a lot more than he does and realizes that early on, but also is eager enough to learn what it’s really about.

Q: In one of the more gripping scenes, Mark, you are captured, taken into a bunker and tortured.

Wahlberg: I always say, and it sounds like I’m joking, but I definitely think there is some truth to it, especially after getting to know David after filming the movie, that he wanted to see me being punished as much as possible, and the more the better. [laughter]

Q: They attached some electrical wires to your head?

Wahlberg: Yeah.

Clooney: You got a little jolt one time, didn’t you, on purpose?

Q: What is Russell like to work with?

Cube: David is a very interesting director because most directors that I work with, they want to make you do it two or three times their way, and then they’ll give you two or three times your way. I mean, most people. David wants you do it two or three times his way, but then he wants to change it and have you do it two or three times the new way, and then he wants to change it again and do it two or three times.

Clooney: He will change while the camera is running. He’ll change your lines. The tricky part of it, and what makes the movie not just chaotic but also brilliant, is that you’re thrown. You don’t ever really get comfortable.

Q: The film was shot in El Centro and the deserts of Arizona and Mexicali, Mexico. What was it like?

Clooney: We had very specific problems in the making of the movie. We’d go to work at 4:30 in the morning because it’s a sunlight thing and it’s winter in the desert. By 4:30 in the afternoon, we’re done. I mean, the sun is gone. . . . So, what happened was, there was a real compressed period of time that we had to work very quickly once we got up and got going.

Cube: You had a name for the way we were working. You said it was “Gone With the Wind” before lunch and “The Dukes of Hazard” after lunch. [laughter]

Wahlberg: There were times when the producer was yelling, “Cut’!” and I’m thinking, “No, that’s not David’s voice,” so I kept going.

Clooney: We had tons of times where literally it was like David and the camera guy running up with the camera up the sand dunes. Everyone chasing the sun with 50 extras in black robes running to get there. And everyone walking in the same steps so you didn’t get footsteps and literally them going, “Just shoot!” It was hysterical. But that is part of what gives this movie such energy.

Q: Speaking of interesting shots, about that treasure map . . .

Cube: Spike Jonze [the music video director who plays a soldier in the film] pulls it out of somebody’s ass. [laughter]

Wahlberg: More importantly, David O. Russell wrangled the map inside this guy’s ass. They were having a hard time seeing the map [in the shot]. You know, they had already set the camera and they didn’t want to lay the guy in the dirt and put the thing in his ass until they were ready to shoot. Then, when they did, the map wasn’t visible [on screen], so David went over and volunteered and adjusted it. . . .

Q: The depiction of the news media in the film is pretty unflattering. There’s one woman who does anything to get the story, and another woman has sex with George’s character to get a story.

Clooney: Thank God. I love her for that.

Q: Is that the way it really happened in the Gulf War?

Clooney: It’s not the story of all of the media. It’s a story of one woman and her, sort of, quest for a story and what she’ll do for it. And, ultimately, she ends up doing the right thing, too. . . . I’m a big liberal, so I don’t want to get into all my political views, but it was very hard to swallow this war for me a long time ago. But it certainly was a media darling, this war. It was very much, “It’s going to be easy. We’re going to fly. Nobody is going to get hurt. We’re going to bomb some people and get out.” And, the truth of the matter is, no one really said, “Wait a minute! Wait a minute! It’s not quite what’s going on here.” Now, of course, we have grown tainted to it and now we’ve learned, well, certainly, we didn’t finish the job and maybe if we are going to be the police force for all of the world, then why aren’t we doing enough?

Cube: I think the military learned something in Vietnam, and they were suppressing a lot of information, where they were kind of giving a general statement. “Here’s what’s going on. Run and tell that.” And they weren’t really letting people come in close and see a lot of the dead bodies.

Wahlberg: The government definitely has control. If you want to go out and risk your own neck, they can make you disappear just as easily as one of those bunkers in Iraq. We’re only entitled to the information that they entitle you to.

Clooney: I don’t believe in the word “media” because I don’t believe everybody gets in a room and plans [it all out]. For every guy that would conspire, there is somebody who wants to win a lot of awards, I suppose, and become Woodward and Bernstein. I think what happened was, they were given limited access and, because of it, they were starving for stories, and they did whatever they could do to get their stories out.

Q: How did the movie affect your opinions of the Gulf War?

Cube: I’m always the person who says, “There’s something else under that cover. This is not the whole picture we’re seeing here.” I’m a conspiracy man. To know that there’s more information that I don’t have access to, that didn’t surprise me.

Wahlberg: To me, yes, I was as gullible as my character in thinking that we were doing the right thing and that we had saved a lot of people and basically put a stop to killing and to a situation that was out of hand. But I think there’s a lot more to it than that.

Clooney: There’s no question we’re protecting a kingdom on this one, you know, with Kuwait.

Q: Do you think the movie takes the position that we should not be the policeman of the world?

Clooney: No, I think it just shows the responsibility of what happens when you do.

Cube: Yeah. If you’re gonna do it, do it. If you’re not, not.

Clooney: I don’t think this movie passes any judgment on [America]. It just kind of lays out, “Look, here’s the problem. The problem is, they’re killing people in Kuwait and it’s horrible what they’re doing.” What Hussein did was awful, horrible.

Wahlberg: But it’s also easy to look at us, like the LAPD. You know what I’m saying? It’s like Rodney King. We’re sitting there beating Rodney King. America, in a weird way, is kind of doing the same thing.

Q: What was the hardest part about making this movie?

Wahlberg: Probably all the talks with Cube coming to my trailer.

Cube: We had trailers like this far apart, so when [Wahlberg] would turn [channels on] his TV, my TV would change, and when I would turn my TV, his TV would change. . . . Like, I’d be trying to watch the game and [Wahlberg’s] watching the Playboy Channel.

Wahlberg: They were talking about a “Boogie Nights” sequel, so I wanted to be prepared.

Q: George, what are you doing next?

Clooney: Mark’s going to do a movie for our company right after we finish up [our current film] “A Perfect Storm.”

Wahlberg: You know what my and George’s tag-team effort is? It’s like, he’s Eddie Murphy and I’m Judge Reinhold. “Beverly Hills Cop.” You know, I never really get my shot, but I’m right there beside him all the time.

Clooney: Cube just wrote and produced a movie.

Cube: “Next Friday.”

Clooney: Didn’t Michael Jordan say that [director Gary Gray’s 1995 film] “Friday” [which starred Ice Cube] was his favorite film?

Cube: Yeah. I’m happy. I never met Michael Jordan.

Q: Has fame affected you guys very much?

Cube: I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the people around me. I think I’m the same cat I was before N.W.A and all of that stuff. So, I don’t know. I just keep working.

Wahlberg: Well, with me, I think I’m a huge star until I go home and my mother says, “Get the [expletive] out of here! Go clean the [expletive] bathroom!” Obviously, where I started, I came from a world where I didn’t have access to anything. I got thrust into it really fast and I had access to a lot of stuff, but I realized a couple weeks later it wasn’t me they were really after, it was the image that was coming across. I’m still trying to find someone who likes me.

Clooney: There’s a funny thing that happens. You are sort of tested a lot to see if you have changed. People will always look at you like, “So, have you changed?” I was lucky. I was 33 when “ER” hit. I’d been working for 15 years on series. What amazes me is these guys, who got [fame] when they were 12 and that they handle it as well as they do, because I don’t know how you do that. I would have believed anything. People tell you you’re great. I’d be like, “Yeah! I’m great!”

Q: George, when you saw the script for “Three Kings,” you really wanted the part, didn’t you?

Clooney: Oh, I fought to get it. I followed David around. I followed him to New York. . . . There was a climate here when we were putting this movie together last summer where the Planet Hollywood had just been bombed by a terrorist, “The Siege” was coming out and they thought that was going to become a big deal, and there was this real concern that this movie was going to put employees at Time Warner in physical jeopardy. And there was a meeting about it where there was basically a conversation going, “We don’t feel we should make it.” . . . [Warner Bros. production chief] Lorenzo [di Bonaventura] really fought to make the movie.

The truth is, there’s going to be a lot of [fallout] from this movie. People are going to give us [expletive]. The Bush world is going to give us [expletive] because George Bush takes it on the chin and because [George W. Bush] is running [for president]. . . . We’re not out to get anybody. It’s not anti-American. It’s not anti-American policy. It’s certainly not anti-Arab. What we have is a movie that tells a really good story, and I think we tell it without trying to pass any judgment, and we try to do it with a sense of humor. And, thank God, that Lorenzo and these guys over [at Warner Bros.] said, “You know what? Screw it. I’m not going to be told not to.” Doesn’t happen all that often. *