Back when we first started talking about war on Iraq, I remember that a couple of cable airings of Three Kings had been pulled at the last minute. Ever since I've been torn between watching it to see how it holds up under the current situation, and avoiding it so as not to be more soul sick than I am.

It's rare that I turn to a Hollywood movie for a reality check. But the above scene from "Three Kings" — shot four years ago on a dry Mexican lake bed — captures a war unseen on American TV screens: the horror that emerges in newspaper accounts of suicide attacks on coalition soldiers and of frightened Americans unwittingly blowing up women and children.