The 80’s brought us a plethora of Vietnam war movies, some of them were incredible and could easily stand up as some of the best films of the decade, Platoon, Casualties of War, The Killing Fields, Full Metal Jacket, and some less highly regarded but awesome flicks such as Bat21, Uncommon Valour and Good Morning Vietnam. Growing up in the 80’s and having parents cool enough to let me watch war movies meant that many of these flicks, particularly those mentioned, remind me a lot of my child hood and I have a warm place in my heart for them. So in the future when I’m in my 50’s I often wonder if I will have the same affection for the plethora of middle eastern set ‘war on terror’ movies that have come to grace the 00’s as their decade of prevalence (for obvious reasons). I think so! Movie’s such as Body of Lies, Black Hawk Down, The Hurt Locker, Lions For Lambs, are all excellent movies that I think will come to stand as some of the best war movies that define my 20’s and 30’s.
Maybe ‘The Kingdom’ could be one of them. I certainly enjoyed it. Released in 2007 this movie had a strong political theme but the story didn’t dwell too much in politics, it stayed slightly above the line of political opinion and sat quite neatly in between a detective story and balls out action thriller.
Amongst a compound of US oil workers based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, terrorists disguise themselves as Saudi cops, infiltrate the compound and set off a series of explosions killing a number of Saudi and US citizens. An FBI agent stationed there is also killed. Back in the US, his FBI buddies Jamie Foxx, Jason Bateman, Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner hear about the attack and make plans to fly out to Saudi Arabia to find out who did it. For poiltical reasons, the FBI are not allowed into the country so Foxx blackmails the Saudi ambassador into letting his team into the country for 5 days to investigate.
Following their arrival the team hook up with a Saudi police Colonel (Asraf Barhom) who advises them about surviving the hostile environment whilst helping them out with their investigation. Jamie Foxx is the leader of the FBI group, so naturally he has to form the strongest relationship with the Saudi Colonel, this was a nice touch this movie gave, two people from different walks of life basically playing the same roles in their respective countries, it was an interesting relationship that culminates in one of great respect and friendship.
Those countries in the middle-east are generally pretty dangerous just even to be in, and the film makers play on this, the Saudi cops constantly warn the team to wear their Kevlar vests. The threat of attack lingers throughout the ordeal, wherever the agents are you feel their vulnerability which makes for some awesome tension. Nowadays being a white person in an Arab country is dangerous, but regardless of race, when it’s communicated to the audience that the terrorists know there are American FBI agents after them, and are watching their every move this is even more edge of the seat business at times.
The actual investigation isn’t so forensic and detailed in approach, it’s all pretty heavy handed and relies on luck more than anything. I would guess that in real life, there would be absolutely no way a team could pull this off in 5 days, it took 10 years to find fucking Bin Laden! But this is a movie, and to return home after 5 days with absolutely nothing would render the whole thing pretty pointless, so of course they are going to find who did it.
The 3rd act completely changes pace and is all “race against the clock” style relentless action. I must mention that the actual warfare that takes place is top notch. Explosions, RPG’s, Grenades, gun fights, hand to hand. It’s loud and violent, and after an hour of dramatic build up, The Kingdom really starts to kick some ass.
The team are told to leave the country so on their way to the airbase, they are ambushed on the freeway, a huge crash takes place followed by a gun battle, all the agents survive and Jason Bateman is kidnapped by the terrorists. So now the culprits have pretty much revealed themselves to the team, kidnapped one of them, and off they go back to their shanty hut to video tape Bateman getting his head cut off. The films sense of timing here completely annoyed me and I know it could have been presented with a better sense of passing time. Whilst Bateman is captured and the terrorists are reading their obligatory letter to the camera prior to his execution, the rest of the team are involved in a huge battle on the streets outside. It is now the race against time to rescue their friend as they know that if they lose him, they may never find him, but we know as the audience that if they don’t hurry the fuck up, he’s a gonner.
But, it takes them fucking forever to read out their letter to the camera, and then Bateman strikes out and knocks the camera down with his feet. With this interior scene being intercut with the action outside, it “filmatically” suggests like more time is passing than it takes to pick a camera up off the floor and I kind of lost my edginess as it became blatantly obvious that Bateman was going to be rescued because of all the dicking around that was going on. But the way the whole scene plays out visually is a nice resolution to the investigation.
The camera work may be considered by some to be a little shaky, but I thought it was fine. Unlike many other action films, the action elements of The Kingdom actually let you see what was going on, I found the shaky cam was actually more noticeable in less intense scenes. Peter Berg was the director. He may have formed a good relationship with Jason Bateman here as the two went on to work together on Hancock, which is a film of significantly lower calibre.
The final moment of the movie was quite profound from both a poitical and morality standpoint. Back at the beginning of the film, after finding out their friend and colleague had been killed in Saudi Arabia, Jennifer Garner is in tears, so Jamie Foxx walks up to her and whispers something in her ear, which immediately causes her to stop crying. The same sort of thing happens with the terrorist leader at the end of the film. After he has been fatally wounded, he whispers something into his granddaughter’s ear. By way of flashback we see that the terrorist leader whispers “Don’t worry we are going to kill them all”. Jamie Foxx is then asked back in the present what he had actually said to Jennifer Garner to stop her crying, and he reveals that he said “don’t worry we are going to kill them”. I think the meaning of this could be interpreted in various ways, but I believe there are two strong possibilities to what this message might be. Could it be......... This will never end. The war against terrorism has become a vicious circle of vengeance. Or, the US are just as guilty for all this death and murder because of their retaliation as the terrorists are for their actions. I don’t have any strong political view here, but the terrorists are the ones who started it, and they ask for everything they get.
