Kingdom, The

A political action thriller starring Jamie Foxx as the head of an elite FBI team trying to track down a group of terrorists in the volatile, dangerous world of Saudi Arabia
For anyone who's been wondering what the classy, intricate political drama Syriana would have been like with less talk and more explosions, we now have The Kingdom, a slick thriller that welds the difficult subject of Middle Eastern politics onto a slice of hard-edged action. Hollywood has made many attempts to deal with the War on Terror, but here we're in a purely commercial frame of mind, as the story sets out to tell a fast-paced tale of good guys versus bad guys, and doesn't really want to let deep characterisation or hazy morality get in the way. The Kingdom opens with an inventive credit sequence that gives the viewer a guide to the tangled history of Saudi Arabia since the discovery of oil and which reveals the West's dependence on the country's political situation. The film begins properly with a shocking terrorist attack on a Western housing compound in Riyadh. In the wake of this brutality, which leaves over 100 oil company workers and their family members dead, an international incident is sparked off, but the US Government is unwilling to intervene, not wishing to upset the delicate balance of power in the region. Leaving the diplomats to debate the issues, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Foxx) instead secretly negotiates for himself and his elite team of investigators to be allowed into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for a five-day visit as 'observers'. Once they arrive, they try to investigate but come up against major opposition from the Saudi authorities, who want to catch the culprits on their own terms. It's only when Fleury finally befriends their liaison officer, Colonel Al-Ghazi (Barhoum), that he gains an ally. But his team are still negotiating a dangerous environment, and are soon at risk of making themselves into targets for the terrorists. Produced by Heat and Miami Vice director Michael Mann, The Kingdom has a similarly muscular feel, structured as a tight, glossy action thriller that keeps the pace high throughout. However, it doesn't shed light on its difficult subject. However much it attempts to explore life in Saudi Arabia, the film never escapes the shackles of being an action movie, and what we get are some very complex themes being hammered to fit into a black-and-white universe. The film's biggest influence is actually the classic 1967 drama In the Heat of the Night, with Jamie Foxx in the Sidney Poitier outsider role and Paradise Now star Asraf Barhoum as the local lawman, both of whom have to learn to work together and forge mutual respect to solve a case. Indeed, the film's strongest material deals with Colonel Al-Ghazi and the growing relationship between him and the FBI team, and Barhoum gives an excellent, beautifully human performance. What could have been simply a standard character is made into something more by his efforts - but it also shows up the distinct lack of characterisation elsewhere in the film. Aside from Al-Ghazi and his assistant Sergeant Haytham (Suliman), most of the Middle Eastern characters vary from unhelpful and obstructive to villainous, while it's only the presence of classy actors like Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman that give any real depth to the main characters. Fleury's team only exist as audience identification figures rather than people in their own right, and for too much of its running time, the film peddles a tricky jingoism. It's good to see a mass-market film trying to tackle this kind of risky material, but most of The Kingdom simply revolves around the free-thinking, gung-ho Americans cutting through the red tape, showing the Saudis how it's supposed to be done, and taking down the terrorists. After a slow build-up, the last half hour is almost entirely made up of a major action sequence, but there's a certain exploitative feel to the combat, as if the film is encouraging us to cheer as the heroes fight back, and the various enemies meet unpleasantly violent ends. These scenes aren't helped by director Peter Berg overplaying the shakycam effects, and not doing enough to establish geography in his fight sequences, instead rendering the action as an over-edited jumble that's more confusing than exciting. All these problems aside, the film does function well as a nuts-and-bolts action-thriller, and never runs the danger of boring the audience. There's great work from Bateman and Cooper in their slim roles. It's the failure of the film to tackle its subject that leaves it feeling like a wasted opportunity. There are important messages in The Kingdom about the Middle East, and how a lust for revenge on both sides of the War on Terror can be a corrosive thing - but they're difficult to hear behind the workings of a fairly predictable and unsurprising Hollywood action movie.
Verdict As a pure thriller, it's entertaining - but The Kingdom tries too hard to be a crowd-pleaser, and ends up standing in the shadows of better and more provocative movies.