Kingdom’ could
try a lot harder

At the Movies
By Senitra Horbrook

The Kingdom walks a fine line between realism and entertainment. Often, it’s not quite sure which direction to take, but seems most content trying to entertain with big bad explosions and lots of gunfire.
Co-produced by Michael Mann (director of Collateral and Miami Vice), it is not surprising that The Kingdom’s action scenes are loud and bloody. From the bombing in the beginning to the shootout at the end, fans of action won’t have much to complain about here.
However, with much of the nightly news and daily newspaper coverage dedicated to the war in Iraq, I’m not sure if it is such a good idea to dramatize the events for monetary gain on the part of filmmakers.
That’s not to say that America’s ongoing problems with the Middle East have not inspired some filmmakers. Focusing on the Middle East surely made the jobs of writer Matthew Michael Carnahan and director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) a little easier. Because of the events of 9/11 and the Iraq war, they don’t have to work hard at setting the scene and establishing the bad guys.
The Kingdom begins when a terrorist attack occurs at a U.S. oil company in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A team of FBI agents is sent to investigate and catch those involved. More than 100 lives are lost in the bombing, including one of the FBI’s own.
Among the team sent overseas are Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx), forensics specialist Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), demolition expert Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper) and intelligence expert Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman).
The Saudis want to handle the investigation their way. They give the FBI agents only five days to investigate, and they’re not even allowed to touch anything. They’ve been assigned a babysitter of sorts, Saudi police commander Col. Faris Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), to make sure they follow Saudi protocol.
Of course, they’re not all bad guys, and in The Kingdom two unlikely allies work together for the greater good. Al-Ghazi and Fleury seem to relate to each other well as they bond over being fathers. Al-Ghazi is sympathetic to Fleury and the other U.S. agents and manages to pull some strings for them while most of the Saudi officials don’t want to be bothered.
Foxx’s character, Agent Fleury, is the leader of the pack. He’s established early on as a nice guy. It’s while talking about his job to his son’s kindergarten class that he gets called out to deal with the situation in Saudi Arabia.
For the most part, The Kingdom is satisfying albeit at times dizzying. The opening montage of real-life U.S.-Saudi Arabia relations goes by in a flash. If you blink, you may miss it. The shaky, handheld camera work makes the bombing hard to follow.
While The Kingdom works perfectly fine as an action thriller, if you’re looking for some sort of cinematic dissertation on U.S.-Saudi Arabia relations, you won’t find it here. There certainly is a serious message embedded in The Kingdom, but, unfortunately, it feels like an afterthought. ••
Movie Grade: B