Jamie Foxx stars as Ronald
Fleury – an FBI agent called in when terrorists bomb an
American compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
It’s an extremely touchy political
situation, but Fleury and his team of
investigation experts desperately want to go to the scene to determine
who
committed such a heinous act, which wounded and killed many, including
some FBI
agents. Shockingly,
they get their wish,
but must be accompanied around Riyadh
by Saudi Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), have limited access to
the
site, are granted practically no rights to interview suspects, and face
resistance
from all angles.
Will Fleury be able to catch
the criminals? Is
the team safe?
The
Kingdom is not a
horrible movie, it just needs to figure out what kind of movie it wants
to
be. On one hand,
director Peter Berg and
writer Matthew Michael Carnahan make part of the film into a CSI-like
taught
thriller with all sorts of examination of evidence, theories, motives
and more,
but never commit all the way to this type of movie.
I want to follow the twists and turns of the
investigation, get better dialogue and storytelling, explore the
relationships
between the team and their Saudi counterparts (an aspect of the movie
that is
best done between Fleury and Al Ghazi), but the film gets lost as it
splits into
three competing movie ideas.
We get more of a jumble of
scenes Berg wanted to do instead of scenes that make the story more
interesting
as The
Kingdom
suddenly becomes a movie distracted by the politics of it all. The audience is faced with
a political
thriller about powerful figures trying to impede the investigation,
cover their
own butts and avoid their own responsibilities, but doesn’t
go all the way with
that either.
Eventually, Carnahan and
Berg add a third aspect to the movie as we get embroiled in a
kidnapping drama
that takes place in the last part of The
Kingdom
(I’m not ruining any plot
twists for anyone who has seen a commercial or trailer for this movie,
which is
everyone in the country). The
kidnapping
could have been an awesome movie unto itself since this portion
of The
Kingdom
has the most fascinating action and storyline, but it comes so late in
the
movie that you might think you just had the greatest dessert in the
history of
the world (you know, like, Ben and Jerry’s Peanut Butter Cup
or AmeriCone
Dream), after being forced to eat a TV dinner (if I mention Ben and
Jerry’s
enough, maybe they will send me some free ice cream).
In the end, none of the
three parts of this movie get a sufficient chance to breathe, grow, add
some
depth and complexity or grab our attention for more than a few minutes
at a
time. The
Kingdom
has its moments, just
not enough to warrant the hype.
2
Waffles (Out of 4)
The
Kingdom is
rated R for intense sequences of graphic brutal violence and
for language.
Copyright
2007 - WaffleMovies.com
