I’m watching Three Kings (I’ve already seen it more than once) and it occurred to me that this is one of a rare breed of movies which take place in the context of a war (in this case, after the liberation of Kuwait, but still out in the Middle East in the desert with armed soldiers in uniform, even if they’re not actively fighting against anyone,) but is not a “war movie.” It’s more of a quirky character-driven, somewhat surrealist “heist caper.”
What are some other movies like this? Movies that take place in the middle of a war, but which follow a separate plot from the historical structure of the war and its battles?
Apocalypse Now is probably one of the most famous; while it definitely occurs during a war, the basic themes have nothing to do with war per se, but instead how thin the verneer of society is in any context where there is no justice or enforcement of law. (This becomes more obvious when you read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the inspiration for the film.) And The Great Escape is really a prison escape movie, despite its foundation in the reality of Luftwaffe-run POW camps. It doesn’t portray the reality of war or POW camps realistically (nor were there Americans involved in the actual escape).
I’d have to disagree, though, that Three Kings is not a war movie; although it starts out as a basic heist caper along the lines of Kelly’s Heroes, it is, in fact, one of the best war movies around, demonstrating as it does the utter inequality and avarice of actual war. It cuts through the romantic jingoism of Tom Clancy and into the reality of war as being 98% boredom and 2% pure terror, where the smart solider looks for any chance to avoid combat duty and line his pockets, just as the top executives are doing. It is Paths of Glory mixed with Catch-22, in its combination of horror, incidential violence, and complete absurdity.
Do the Indianna Jones movies “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Last Crusade” count? Both are set during WWII, if I recall correctly, with the Nazis trying to obtain the religious artifacts.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1938, both predating the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 which is generally considered the beginning of WWII in Europe.
As for what the German army was doing operating an enormous excavation in British-controlled Egypt in 1936…well, there isn’t really much about the film that makes sense in any objective fashion. But it’s a hell of a ride.
Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful is, to not give too much away, about an Italian Jew’s pursuing and marrying a higher-class woman, then his relationship with his son as they try to exist after being sent to a concentration camp.
It’s definitely in the context of a war, but it’s also definitely not your typical war movie.
Clint Eastwood was in a Gothic thriller of sorts called The Beguiled (1971) about a Union soldier taken in (and then taken prisoner) by students and matrons in a girl’s boarding school in the South during the Civil War.
The Others (the Nicole Kidman movie) takes place at the very end of/aftermath of WW2 and the war’s a big part of the movie, but not in the action sense. I won’t spoil for the 4 people who haven’t seen it, but it’s a very tense movie and much of it revolves around her husband coming home from the war and the bleakness of wartime shortage/air read measures/etc…
John Boorman’s Hope and Glory is a great autobiographical slice of life movie about a boy in London and the countryside during the Blitz. I suppose The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe could also fit into this category.
I first thought of Christian Bale as a great actor after seeing him in Empire of the Sun, about an English boy whose family is trapped behind lines when the Japanese overrun Shang Hai. It would fit into this (and I think also introduces Ben Stiller, though that’s not really relevant or necessary to know).
I think I should have worded the OP differently. Really what I’m talking about are movies where the primary characters are soldiers, in uniform, active duty, deployed in the middle of a war, but the plot is concerned with something more or less unrelated to the war.
Of all of these replies, the only one that really fits what I mean is Apocalypse Now. I haven’t seen Stalag 17 but from what I’ve heard about it, maybe that one would count as well.
