 |  | Great action, mixed message |  |
A wonderfully executed action movie with a mixed message, The Kingdom stars Jamie Foxx as Ronald Fleury, the leader of an elite group of FBI government agents (which also includes Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman) who are assigned to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East. Things aren't quite what they seem however, and soon enough Fleury and his crew have five days to figure out just what happened. As The Kingdom moves along, Fleury and his crew find unlikely allies and traverse the local politics, leading up to an explosive finale. With everything that The Kingdom does action-wise, it disappoints in it's script. The entire film sends a mixed message that feels as if it doesn't even know what it's trying to convey to the viewer. This isn't always noticeable thanks to the great performances from Foxx and co., and director Peter Berg (Hancock, Friday Night Lights) manages to wonderfully orchestrate some spectacular, and surprising, action sequences. All in all, despite the mixed message that The Kingdom delivers, it's worth seeing for the action elements alone, which are enough to make anyone stand up and cheer.
July 28, 2008The movie starts w/a superficial time-line of U.S./Western involvement in Saudi Arabia and recent terrorist events against the U.S. So it starts w/a U.S./Western perspective. The next thing you see is an attack on U.S. corporate compound in Riyadh. Send in the FBI... but this is the Hollywood FBI; Foxx spends a lot of his time looking cool in his shades, Cooper is the male agent who looks concerned all the time & Garner is the female agent who looks concerned all the time and Batemen plays his usual flippant character he's played since the 80's. The political joke in reality and in the movie is the House of Saud would like to minimize the appearance of the U.S. & the West in Saudi Arabia although we still maintain corporate and military compounds in the country. This of course inhibits our FBI team, but not enough to result in the inevitable Hollywood cliched ending. You never really get a better understanding of the House of Saud, Western involvement in the Saudi Arabia or the common man's opinion towards either. It's just cops & robbers in the Middle East. There's no consistency in the model of weapons the FBI agents use and they look like people who've never been trained to hold weapons or work in a 3-4 person group (weird since Foxx was in "Jarhead"). Loads of big name Hollywood stars, but poor performances and a tired story.
July 28, 2008This movie is very very good. It's emotion filled and pulls you in. Some moments are disturbing, and the action is intense. Overall very good,fun movie.
July 28, 2008 | | Walked away with little insight .... but a great emotional ride. | |
I just finished watching this... and it was powerful. Not very educational but the struggles in each characters life is heart felt. I was very upset at the death of a particular officer towards the end. I guess it goes to show that war is never ending. It is wired into human nature and though our emotions are so resistant....it is a given fact of the laws of survival.
But all we are saying ...is give peace a chance.
July 23, 2008| | | Entertaining but not deep... | |
Just taken as an action flic the film marginally succeeds as the battle sequences are very good. In fact much of the style of the film is reminiscent of a Tony Scott/Ridley Scott/Michael Mann (not surprisingly) with high color contrasts, lots of closeups and a grainy-ness to the picture quality...Unlike some I was not put off by the hand held camera work in this film...the latest Bourne film was MUCH worse than this both in terms of shakiness of the camera and speed of editorial cuts...
Acting wise here you don't get much...none of the characters is highly developed but then again none of the actors give a sub-par performance...just average, collect the paycheck and go home acting...
The plot was decent up until someone demanded that a politically correct ending be tacked on, throwing the whole emotional resonance of the film out of whack...Worth viewing once...
July 22, 2008More reviews at Amazon.com ...
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