Country: United States
Genre: Action/ Mainstream
Director: Peter Berg
Year: 2007
Rating: 
WORTH A LOOK
As everyone who reads about these things is aware, most of the movies that have been made about the Iraq war have been financial (notice I didn’t say artistic) failures. The Kingdom is one of the few pictures about terrorism that has made money. It was a medium sized hit. True, it takes place in Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, but I’d guess that in the minds of most Americans, there isn’t much of a difference.
Why was The Kingdom successful? Well, for one thing, the action scenes are set up for maximum architectural suspense by screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan and shot with propulsive energy by director Peter Berg. But just as importantly, Carnahan borrows from the flatulent one-liners that litter scripts in Jerry Bruckheimer movies. In the non-action scenes, Peter Berg employs the by now cliche jerky cam to browbeat the audience into feeling that something urgent is going on.
These latter aspects, which I suspect were a completely deliberate attempt to dumb down the material for the flyover states, limit the artistic success of The Kingdom. This tendency also finds it’s way into the characterizations of the Americans.
Special Agent Ronald Fleury, as played by Jamie Foxx, is a grandstanding, insensitive prototypical ugly American jerk, but he’s presented as the hero. Actress Jennifer Garner is another problem. She is completely unconvincing as an FBI agent — she just doesn’t come across as professional. Still, Garner handles the action scenes with aplomb. Chris Cooper, as another FBI agent, would be fine if wasn’t saddled with such hideous dialog. Worst of all is Special Agent Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman), a numbnuts who stands around making bad jokes. In a movie with an ostensibly serious subject, every moronic bonmot made me cringe. I wanted him to get killed really badly. Yet, during an action scene in which Leavitt was in peril, the filmmaking was so competent that I was forced to worry about the character, even though I heartily despised him.
Thankfully, the Saudis are portrayed much more intelligently. The true hero of the film is Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), who somehow tolerates the Americans’ clueless behavior and becomes friends with Fleury. The actors playing the terrorists are likewise dignified and realistic, although they aren’t really given much to say.
So it’s not that the filmmakers are incompetent — it’s just that they intended to make a gung ho, stupid, jingoistic American war picture about current events, along the lines of the Green Berets.
The opening sequence, which outlines an abbreviated and simplified version of the events that led up to the tensions between terrorists and Americans in Saudi Arabia, is beautifully done. Just enough information to give the necessary context for the action, but not enough to give us any kind of nuanced understanding of the frustrations of the Arab world. Cynical, but smart.
So, what is The Kingdom about, anyway?
Some terrorists assault an American compound in Saudi Arabia. Special Agent Ronald Fleury manages to bully a Saudi diplomatic into letting his team investigate the attack and help track down those responsible, which they proceed to do in ridiculously easy fashion.
Again, the attack of the American compound is beautifully scripted and directed, but once the script gets around to the reaction of our heroes, and their efforts to get to Saudi Arabia, my eyes were soon glazing over. It’s not that the politics involved are inherently uninteresting. Its that every plot development and strategy employed is blatantly phony, designed to appeal to a low IQ and bloviating pseudo-patriotism.
Fortunately, once The Kingdom gets to Saudi Arabia and the action starts, The Kingdom radically improves.
Too bad the economics of filmmaking seem to prohibit an intelligent discussion of the politics of terrorism alongside slambang action visuals. That would have been something to see.
As an example of how destructive this focus-driven style of moviemaking is, The Kingdom originally ended with the American FBI team’s airplane getting blown up after they complete the mission and are on their way home. That would have been a powerful ending, but I’m ashamed (for my countrymen) to say that such an ending would have ruined The Kingdom’s commercial prospects.
For intelligent people, there are two basic ways to watch The Kingdom. Either grit your teeth through the dumb parts until you get to the well-done action sequences or just fast forward to the action sequences and watch them without context. You won’t miss much.
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