With a storyline ripped straight from today's headlines and a pair of sensational and brutal action sequences bookending the film,
The Kingdom should by all accounts be a winner. And for part of the film, it is. Director Peter Berg (
Friday Night Lights) deals with the touchy issue of US and Saudi relations in a manner that manages to avoid manipulation for the most part (except for some cloying dialogue and one or two sequences that ring false). It's kind of strange to think of a movie dealing with such issues as a popcorn movie, but that's really what it is at the end. There's nothing exactly wrong with
The Kingdom in theory, it's only when it forces us to sit through its lengthy and dry middle section where not much happens, and the underdeveloped characters refuse to grab our attention, that the movie loses some of its previous luster.
FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) wants permission to fly to Saudi Arabia and perform his own investigation when some terrorists bomb an American compound during the middle of a softball game. The fact that two fellow Agents were killed in the blast make it all the more personal. His request is initially rejected, but Ronald knows who to talk to, and he eventually is given permission for a five day secret mission that will be closely scrutinized every step of the way. His team on the investigation includes Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), and Adam Leavitt (comic actor Jason Bateman in a rare dramatic role). When they arrive, they find that their progress is hindered almost every step of the way by Saudi authorities. Their only ally is a military Colonel named Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhous), whom Ronald bonds with during his time overseas. When the team is finally allowed to do some real investigating work, they quickly uncover the clues that could lead them right to the terrorist group before the group's next attack can become a reality.
Despite being nearly two hours in length,
The Kingdom races full speed ahead with its story, seldom stopping for character development or concentrating on the situation at hand. This is both its best and worst feature. On one hand, the movie does keep a good pace for part of its running time. The movie opens quite literally with a bang as the initial attack on the American residential compound is brutal and shocking, not shying away from images of children being fired upon. Even the opening credits, which chronicles and displays a timeline of American and Saudi relations, is compelling and immediately grabs our attention. Those expecting a thoughtful and thorough look at international relations are likely to be disappointed, however. The movie sidesteps its own tough questions, and resorts either to the American investigation team being frustrated over the lack of cooperation they are receiving, or to brutal and bloody gunfights that are shot and edited with the speed and accuracy of an action film. This is a movie where the heroes can stumble upon the right clues that lead them to the right answers within a day or two, and those answers lead them right to the enemy. The last half hour of the film is an extended action sequence as Fleury and his team find themselves trying to rescue an ally, and blowing away anything that gets in their sights. The movie's final scene tries to make up for this with a sequence that is supposed to be chilling and make us wonder if the "heroes" are any different from the "villains", but it comes across as being heavy handed and somewhat forced.
To be honest, I actually found myself not minding the action-heavy last half. It's actually a welcome relief after the lengthy mid section where not much of interest happens. The Americans find themselves stopped at just about every turn whenever they try to investigate or even question anyone. What this amounts to is a lot of time where the characters are faced with roadblocks, and forced to go back to their bunker in frustration. This part of the film drags even more when you consider that we learn very little if anything about these characters. Aside from the fact that Ronald Fleury has a son back home, we don't really learn much about the man. Janet, Grant, and Adam are given even less to do, and simply seem to be killing time until their individual big scenes. A closer look into these characters could have made this part of the film more tolerable to sit through. The movie at least looks good throughout, and was obviously made with great care. The sun-baked cinematography gives the film a blistering look that puts us in the action with the cast. And the music score by composer Danny Elfman is surprisingly subtle at times, and does not play up the melodrama or hit us over the head with emotion.
The Kingdom is a strange film indeed. It seems to want to be an important movie that has something to say, but at its heart, it's a revenge movie where guns never run out of ammo, and the heroes can fly in and save the day in a short amount of time. I admired the film in parts for what it was. The violence is brutal without being glorified, and the movie at least never talks down to us, probably because it doesn't have time to. This is not a bad movie, just not quite the movie I was hoping for considering the theme of the film and the cast involved.
The Kingdom is a mostly safe, sanitized package designed to appeal to the Hollywood crowd.
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With a storyline ripped straight from today's headlines and a pair of sensational and brutal action sequences bookending the film, The Kingdom should by all accounts be a winner. And for part of the film, it is. Director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) deals with the touchy issue of US and Saudi relations in a manner that manages to avoid manipulation for the most part (except for some cloying dialogue and one or two sequences that ring false). It's kind of strange to think of a movie dealing with such issues as a popcorn movie, but that's really what it is at the end. There's nothing exactly wrong with The Kingdom in theory, it's only when it forces us to sit through its lengthy and dry middle section where not much happens, and the underdeveloped characters refuse to grab our attention, that the movie loses some of its previous luster.
FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) wants permission to fly to Saudi Arabia and perform his own investigation when some terrorists bomb an American compound during the middle of a softball game. The fact that two fellow Agents were killed in the blast make it all the more personal. His request is initially rejected, but Ronald knows who to talk to, and he eventually is given permission for a five day secret mission that will be closely scrutinized every step of the way. His team on the investigation includes Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), and Adam Leavitt (comic actor Jason Bateman in a rare dramatic role). When they arrive, they find that their progress is hindered almost every step of the way by Saudi authorities. Their only ally is a military Colonel named Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhous), whom Ronald bonds with during his time overseas. When the team is finally allowed to do some real investigating work, they quickly uncover the clues that could lead them right to the terrorist group before the group's next attack can become a reality.
Despite being nearly two hours in length, The Kingdom races full speed ahead with its story, seldom stopping for character development or concentrating on the situation at hand. This is both its best and worst feature. On one hand, the movie does keep a good pace for part of its running time. The movie opens quite literally with a bang as the initial attack on the American residential compound is brutal and shocking, not shying away from images of children being fired upon. Even the opening credits, which chronicles and displays a timeline of American and Saudi relations, is compelling and immediately grabs our attention. Those expecting a thoughtful and thorough look at international relations are likely to be disappointed, however. The movie sidesteps its own tough questions, and resorts either to the American investigation team being frustrated over the lack of cooperation they are receiving, or to brutal and bloody gunfights that are shot and edited with the speed and accuracy of an action film. This is a movie where the heroes can stumble upon the right clues that lead them to the right answers within a day or two, and those answers lead them right to the enemy. The last half hour of the film is an extended action sequence as Fleury and his team find themselves trying to rescue an ally, and blowing away anything that gets in their sights. The movie's final scene tries to make up for this with a sequence that is supposed to be chilling and make us wonder if the "heroes" are any different from the "villains", but it comes across as being heavy handed and somewhat forced.
To be honest, I actually found myself not minding the action-heavy last half. It's actually a welcome relief after the lengthy mid section where not much of interest happens. The Americans find themselves stopped at just about every turn whenever they try to investigate or even question anyone. What this amounts to is a lot of time where the characters are faced with roadblocks, and forced to go back to their bunker in frustration. This part of the film drags even more when you consider that we learn very little if anything about these characters. Aside from the fact that Ronald Fleury has a son back home, we don't really learn much about the man. Janet, Grant, and Adam are given even less to do, and simply seem to be killing time until their individual big scenes. A closer look into these characters could have made this part of the film more tolerable to sit through. The movie at least looks good throughout, and was obviously made with great care. The sun-baked cinematography gives the film a blistering look that puts us in the action with the cast. And the music score by composer Danny Elfman is surprisingly subtle at times, and does not play up the melodrama or hit us over the head with emotion.
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