Clooney's Back In <i>Three Kings</i>
George Clooney, the Hollywood hunk who won American hearts on NBC's E.R., is back on the big screen with his new film Three Kings. It's an action-packed adventure film set in Iraq immediately after the Gulf War.
Clooney plays a Special Forces captain who teams up with a couple of Army reservists for a treasure hunt that promises to make them very rich men. CBS News This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen reports.
In Three Kings, four U.S. soldiers, disillusioned by their underwhelming role in the Persian Gulf War, come across a map that should lead them to a bevy of Kuwaiti gold, stolen by the Iraqi army.
"It's a black comedy about the Gulf War,Â…with some action and some drama," Clooney explains. "It's a made-up story. But it is surrounded by a lot of factual events thatÂ…weren't really discussed and still aren't really discussed. So it raises a lot of hackles along the way."
But as this mini-militia sets in search of fortune, it is confronted with a surprising view of Iraq and its people. And what started as a passage to personal profit turns out to be a journey of self-discovery and redemption.
Before the journey, however, the crew required a little basic training.
"We did a lot of classroom time where you would sit with the colonel and he would stand in front of a chalkboard and talk to us," says Clooney.
"The rest of the time we did some military maneuvers, it was pretty funny. They would give us a Humvee, the four of us, and load us up with weapons and send us through the desert," he says.
"They would give us objectives. We would have to go find a box in whatever bunker," he notes. "Mostly it was military drills."
Three Kings, also starring Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube, is in theaters now. For more information, visit the Three Kings Web site.