The Political Misadventures Of Fran And Faris
PopcornReel.com Movie Review: "The Kingdom"
By Omar P.L. Moore/September 28, 2007
Ashraf Barhoum as Saudi Colonel Faris Al Ghazi and Jamie Foxx as American FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury, in Peter Berg's "The Kingdom", which opened today. At the center of the picture above is Chris Cooper, as bomb squad FBI Agent Grant Sykes. (Photo: Frank Connor/Universal Pictures)
Peter Berg, a decent actor and competent feature film director, inserts himself within the first ten minutes of his new film "The Kingdom", which opened today across North America. He is seen on camera asking his lead actor Jamie Foxx (who plays FBI Special Agent Ron Fleury) a couple of questions. Mr. Foxx's character later talks about his real-life home town of Terrell, Texas, making a wise-crack about it in one scene. It is in these small ways and other much larger ones that "The Kingdom", a political action thriller, is self-conscious, but not necessarily self-fulfilling of the promises that the first hour gives the audience.
Following the film's compelling and well-meaning opening credit sequence of an illustrated history lesson on the American and Saudi political relationship, a vicious attack is launched against American civilians in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia -- it is a stunning, disturbing one-two punch which shakes the audience before they've settled. Agent Fleury and his group of agents (Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman) defy the U.S. State Department and set out to investigate the murders. Mr. Berg fuels the passion of retribution, the hamstringing by bureaucracy, and the pathos of familial upheaval for much of the first hour and parts of the second, but most of the second hour of the film lets the whole film down significantly. What begins as an excellent build-up of tension and slowly percolates like water heated in a kettle, is eviscerated by the graphic violence that fills much of the second hour. It is as if Mr. Berg either ran out of material for what was a credible and palpable film, or simply decided that with the political tension searing sky high it was time for the bloody fireworks to explode.
Though the tension is authentic, the portrayal of the Saudis (surprise, surprise) is not, undoing the very purpose of the film's opening credit sequence. The Saudis are presented in two ways: mostly bad Saudis, and one or two good Saudis, including Special Forces Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (well rendered by Ashraf Barhoum), whose adversarial relationship with the frustrated American FBI cadre predictably thaws. Later, Fleury asks what the Colonel's name is, and when Faris gives his name there is an inevitable foreshadowing to come, and a sentimentality that "The Kingdom" thrives on. There's a symmetrical construction in scenes about the frailty of life that permeate the film. Early on, FBI agent Fran Manner (Kyle Chandler) is on the ground in Riyadh, amidst chaos and carnage, urging Fleury to "get out here". At the time, Fleury has been in a classroom in the U.S., telling a story to kids about how his child Kevin (T.J. Burnett) was born. The scene evokes the footage of U.S. president George W. Bush reading "The Pet Goat" to a group of first or second-graders in a Florida classroom on September 11, 2001, and that Mr. Berg's film has this scene with Mr. Foxx resembling the Florida event six years ago is no accident.
"The Kingdom" is full of good actors, but it appears that the film doesn't quite know what to do with its all of its riches. There's Danny Huston as Attorney General who has a few clenched jaw moments; Richard Jenkins as FBI Director Robert Grace; Frances Fisher as Elaine Flowers, a Washington Post reporter (Fisher is also currently in "In The Valley of Elah"), and Jeremy Piven, who injects a programmed sense of fun, charisma and hospitality as a U.S. consulate ambassador to Saudi Arabia. In contrast, while Mr. Bateman enjoys some scene stealing with several lines of dialogue (written by Matthew Michael Carnahan) and one priceless camera shot, his one-note shtick soon grows tired. There could have been further build up and better use of many of the actors mentioned in this paragraph, but instead their efforts are ultimately subsumed by the American cowboy yahoo-isms that unsated action audiences are baying for.
And for every attempt at authenticity there are two backward steps of cartoonist or unrealistic scenarios in "The Kingdom". When watching, audiences will likely be able to determine which are which. In one scene, Mr. Berg borrows from Michael Mann's classic shootout sequence from "Heat", but Mr. Mann, who directed Berg and Foxx in "Collateral" and was also a producer of "The Kingdom", at least knows among other things, how to consistently maintain a mood, feeling, nuance and depth in his characters that the talented Peter Berg could have utilized more of in his latest directorial effort.
"The Kingdom" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense sequences of graphic brutal violence, and for language. The film's duration is one hour and 50 minutes.
Extra: "The Kingdom" of Jamie Foxx
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