The Kingdom
October 23rd 2007 02:28
Category: Movies
Director: Peter Berg.
Producer: Michael Mann & Scott Stuber.
Screenplay by: Matthew Michael Carnahan.
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper & Jennifer Garner.
Produced by: 2007 Universal Pictures.
Running time: Approx 115 minutes. Rating: MA.
The first thing that popped into my mind when I heard about this movie was “The Kingdom – isn’t that a book about the House of Saud or Saudi Arabia?” I had not seen any trailers for The Kingdom nor read any promotional material on it until I arrived at the cinema and had a quick glance at the program guide. Sure enough the blurb told me that it was about an FBI team doing an investigation into a bombing at some compound located in Saudi Arabia. It mentioned the stars and the fact that the characters they portrayed were the FBI agents investigating this crime. So before I’d even taken my seat I was pretty much on the money about the Saudi connection though how things were going to pan out as regards to the drama and plot was yet to be revealed to me.
Frankly after the final credits rolled and I was wandering down the stairs, out the cinema doors and into the hurly burly of my home town I was rather perplexed. The Kingdom rather than being possibly a great film with an intense plot and riveting drama seemed nothing more than one hour and fifty five minutes filled with lots of explosions, graphic gunfights and the obligatory moments of culture clash and awkwardness. Depth there is not, unless you count the investigation of the bomb crater that takes place someway into the movie, which is rather strange considering the nature of the topic and the fact that there are some fairly quality actors involved. It doesn’t even rate as just a straightforward action movie.
The movie opens with unusual credits that are combined with various elements of historical footage to form a rather bewildering montage whose purpose seems to be beyond my ken. Now I may not know all there is to know about Islam or Saudi Arabia but I do know that the nation was founded by the House of Saud, that oil is its major export dollar earner, that the Saudi’s are major players in the world political scene via their influence in OPEC, that in the seventies there was a major fuel price crisis and that the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals and Osama bin Laden is a former Saudi national. So why was I being told these things as I was watching the opening moments of The Kingdom? Is Universal Pictures implying that none of these things are known to the average cinema goer? I have to admit I’m not up on my knowledge of Wahhabism, the school of Islam as practiced within the confines of Saudi Arabia and to some degree the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Generally regarded as a very conservative school of Islamic practise Wahhabism emerged in the late eighteenth century at a time when the Arabian peninsular was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Comparative theology aside once the baffling credit sequence finished I found myself hoping that the perplexity doesn’t continue on into the rest of the movie. Alas alack I was to be sadly disappointed. Essentially the plot of the movie revolves around a terrorist attack on a compound of US workers living in a district in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. The initial attack however is only a precursor, as the police, the emergency services etc are all on the scene of the tragedy when a second attack involving the detonation of a bomb occurs. The death toll soars and amongst the victims is an FBI agent who was on the scene. Al Hamza, a leading figure in extremist circles is the primary suspect, the attack is too well planned and executed for it not to have been him. Unfortunately really for as soon as this individual is mentioned the movie is essentially all about the FBI chasing him down and brining him to ground, there is no ongoing mystery, no drama, nothing. In fact at the end all The Kingdom seems to end up being is a rather bland justification of America’s War on Terror and how the west has to be tough against terrorism.
It’s a shame really as The Kingdom could have been one of the great thrillers/action movies to come out of Hollywood that deals with contemporaneous issues and events. The ingredients were there in the movie to make a lot more mileage out of; the enmity between the National Guard general and the police colonel, the seeming insistence of the US state department official to whisk the FBI agents back stateside and the political intrigues between the US and the Saudi’s over whether or not they would allow the FBI to send a team onto Saudi soil. All these facets could have been used to develop a far meatier and enjoyable plot; possibly one that could have given its cast a lot more to work with as well and really shine.
Producer: Michael Mann & Scott Stuber.
Screenplay by: Matthew Michael Carnahan.
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper & Jennifer Garner.
Produced by: 2007 Universal Pictures.
Running time: Approx 115 minutes. Rating: MA.
The first thing that popped into my mind when I heard about this movie was “The Kingdom – isn’t that a book about the House of Saud or Saudi Arabia?” I had not seen any trailers for The Kingdom nor read any promotional material on it until I arrived at the cinema and had a quick glance at the program guide. Sure enough the blurb told me that it was about an FBI team doing an investigation into a bombing at some compound located in Saudi Arabia. It mentioned the stars and the fact that the characters they portrayed were the FBI agents investigating this crime. So before I’d even taken my seat I was pretty much on the money about the Saudi connection though how things were going to pan out as regards to the drama and plot was yet to be revealed to me.
The movie opens with unusual credits that are combined with various elements of historical footage to form a rather bewildering montage whose purpose seems to be beyond my ken. Now I may not know all there is to know about Islam or Saudi Arabia but I do know that the nation was founded by the House of Saud, that oil is its major export dollar earner, that the Saudi’s are major players in the world political scene via their influence in OPEC, that in the seventies there was a major fuel price crisis and that the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals and Osama bin Laden is a former Saudi national. So why was I being told these things as I was watching the opening moments of The Kingdom? Is Universal Pictures implying that none of these things are known to the average cinema goer? I have to admit I’m not up on my knowledge of Wahhabism, the school of Islam as practiced within the confines of Saudi Arabia and to some degree the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan. Generally regarded as a very conservative school of Islamic practise Wahhabism emerged in the late eighteenth century at a time when the Arabian peninsular was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
It’s a shame really as The Kingdom could have been one of the great thrillers/action movies to come out of Hollywood that deals with contemporaneous issues and events. The ingredients were there in the movie to make a lot more mileage out of; the enmity between the National Guard general and the police colonel, the seeming insistence of the US state department official to whisk the FBI agents back stateside and the political intrigues between the US and the Saudi’s over whether or not they would allow the FBI to send a team onto Saudi soil. All these facets could have been used to develop a far meatier and enjoyable plot; possibly one that could have given its cast a lot more to work with as well and really shine.
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