Sayed Moustafa Al-Qazwini, who plays an Iraqi defector, who sells Major Gates cars stolen from Kuwait, was, in real life, tortured and kicked in the eye by Saddam Hussein's security forces, blinding him in that eye. Like many advisors and extras in the film, he is an actual refugee from Iraq.
One scene tracks a hypothetical bullet entering Mark Wahlberg, which came about from David O. Russell asking a doctor friend about what a bullet does to the body. "I said, 'What's the weirdest wound?' and he described that particular wound (used in the movie). You can get a wound that doesn't kill you. A bullet goes through your lung and you can walk around, but the air is leaking out of your lung every time you breathe, so your own breathing can kill you, because your own breathing will crush your organs. It will turn into a balloon in there, and they have to puncture it to let the air out. So he told me those two things, and I said, 'God, that's never been in a movie. I'd like to do that.'"
The movie was filmed in the deserts of Casa Grande, Arizona, California, and Mexico, with many of the extras played by actual Iraqi refugees. According to David O. Russell, two of the cast members had "personally defaced three hundred murals of Saddam." After one of the military advisers to the film died during production, Russell said the death was "perhaps due to chemicals he was exposed to in the Gulf."
The film was banned in Iraq.
The role of Major Archie Gates was offered to Nick Nolte, who turned it down, saying he was too old. Jeff Bridges wanted to play Gates, but was turned down as a result of the poor box-office run of El gran Lebowski (1998).
David O. Russell: The "Hollywood actor" George Clooney strangles in the epilogue sequence. He also provides the singing voice of the helicopter pilot near the beginning.