“Kingdom” comes. Then it turns the plague of international terrorism and the complicated conflict in the Middle East into a cross between this year’s “A Mighty Heart” and a kickin’ episode of “CSI: Riyadh.”
A massively lethal jihadist attack on an American oil company housing compound in Saudi Arabia sparks an investigation by a crack team of gutsy FBI agents who must overcome sensitive diplomatic relations, internal executive branch squabbling and a cell of bombing extremists who want them dead.
Not unlike Angelina Jolie’s docudrama about the Daniel Pearl kidnapping this summer, this fictional scenario uses the crime genre and well-done scenes of action suspense as its magnet. But the ultimate mission of both movies — in today’s example, a forced one -— is to send a humane “we-are-the-world” message that puts Westerners and purported “good” Muslims together on the same side against the “bad” ones. Meanwhile, like any decent forensic procedural show on TV, it gets us sucked into an exciting and heightened (if too easily solved) whodunit.
Director Peter Berg, screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan and producer Michael Mann have put together a slick package. It includes an appealing ensemble; an easily followed narrative; and the lavishly budgeted explosions, car chases and gunplay of a major studio motion picture.
As Berg has proved in both his reprehensible “Very Bad Things” and his fine “Friday Night Lights,” the helmsman knows how to gin up dramatic impact and get the adrenaline pumping. To equalize the intensity, he enlists a quartet of cool customers as his heroic federal law enforcers: Jamie Foxx as team leader Fleury, Chris Cooper as the hands-on veteran, Jennifer Garner as the token hard-core girl character and Jason Bateman as sardonic comic relief.
They are at first thwarted by but then, predictably, join forces with the somber Saudi police honcho Colonel Faris (Ashraf Barhom). Faris is duly humanized. (Guess what, folks, he has a family too! Shock and amazement!) And then, despite the typical D.C. power trips of bureaucratic functionaries, played by the likes of Jeremy Piven and Danny Huston, the joint team will find itself with some amazingly good clues to find those responsible for killing those 100 people on the compound. But the terrorists resent the presence of any Americans on sacred Muslim soil and are preparing a trap.
Will all the good guys survive? Expert movie buffs won’t be surprised one iota about who ends up biting the dust in “The Kingdom.” Heartstrings are pulled and entertaining violence is perpetrated in this royal crowd-pleaser.
‘The Kingdom’
***
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman
Director: Peter Berg
Rated R for sexual content and some language
Running time: 111 minutes
