Directed by: Peter Berg
Premise: After an American housing facility in
Saudi Arabia is bombed, an FBI response team works with Saudi officials to try
and find those responsible.
What Works: The Kingdom combines elements of
multiple genres, including espionage and political thrillers, police
procedurals, and the Western to create a hybrid that presents familiar scenarios
in ways that are fresh and new. The film moves along briskly and the final act
of the story is shot and edited extraordinarily well. The style of the film
shows influence of producer Michael Mann, director of Heat and Collateral,
but director Berg puts his own stamp on the material, conveying complicated
expository information in effective and concise ways. The performances are also
very well done, especially Jamie Foxx as team leader Ronald Fleury and Chris
Cooper as explosives expert Grant Sykes, but the true standout actor of the film
is Ashraf Barhom as Saudi Colonel Faris
Al Ghazi. Although the civilian deaths cement the gravity of the story early in
the film, the ongoing relationship between Fleury and Al Ghazi sustains the
emotional center and gives the film more substance, allowing the Westerner and
Middle Easterner to overcome their differences and combine talents to combat
terror. This relationship is a microcosm of Western—Mid-East relations and The
Kingdom is able to delve into the subject, addressing some of the
complicated issues on the Saudi side and the film admirably attempts to give
more texture to the Muslim characters and their culture than is usually afforded
to them in a Hollywood film, especially one dealing with terrorism.
What Doesn’t: For most of the film, The
Kingdom only scratches the surface of the issues of terrorism and the
consequences of retaliation. The film strives for the kind of complexity
featured in Spielberg's Munich,
but the story is so limited in its scope that it is unable to accomplish that.
Bottom Line: The Kingdom is an exceptional
film. Its action scenes are on par with the best action elements of the genre
and the substance of the film gives the audiences more to chew on than other
films of its kind. Although it cannot reach the heights of Munich, it
certainly comes close and at least equals films like Clear
and Present Danger.