DVD REVIEW

The Kingdom

Universal Studios Home Entertainment || R || Dec 26, 2007

Synopsis

The Kingdom is a high intensity thriller about a team of elite FBI agents sent to Saudi Arabia to solve a brutal mass murder and find a killer before he strikes again. Out of their element and under heavy fire, the team must join forces with their Saudi counterparts. As these unlikely allies begin to unlock the secrets of the crime scene, the team is lead into a heart-stopping, do-or-die confrontation.


Critique

Relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States are complicated. Sure, sure, it’s the oil, stupid, but it’s more too, and we have to look back over nearly eight decades to get to the beginning of it. The opening credits sequence of The Kingdom, one of the best sequences of the film, boils this down to a few minutes, to a brief but compelling (and vital) history lesson, starting when the Kingdom was united in 1932, through the present, where the Saudis are the biggest oil producers and the Americans the biggest oil consumers on the planet. What kind of allies can two parties like that possibly be?

The basic story springs out of real events, mainly the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996 and the bombing of an American housing compound in Riyadh in 2003, but the scenario could be pulled from any number of events in the Middle East, from the 1983 bombing of the American embassy in Lebanon that killed 63 people, to the bombing of a Marine barracks in Lebanon the same year that killed 241 American servicemen, to the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000 which killed 17 sailors. In the case of the USS Cole, the FBI investigation was stymied by the same kind of politicking that we see in The Kingdom, where the desire not to step on toes superseded any investigative policy.

So The Kingdom is culled from actual events, but the film is not a documentary, nor is it a modern history lesson. If there is any position the film takes, it is to question the notion that “relations” with Saudi Arabia seem to boil down to the U.S. tip-toeing around and walking on egg shells while the Saudis do whatever they want. We see this in the characters of Attorney General Gideon Young (Danny Houston) and Damon Schmidt (Jeremy Piven), the diplomat on the ground in Saudi Arabia. The two seem scared of doing anything, anything that might cause the Saudis to raise the price of oil or – gasp – turn off the spigots altogether. Piven in particular is downright fearful in his scenes, as though simply being in the country is asking for it. Schmidt is prematurely grey, as we might imagine anyone in his position to be.

Peter Berg, the director of the film (who also cameos in an early scene), also directed Friday Night Lights, which seems fitting because after a little over an hour of meandering, after we spend the first two-thirds of the film following the FBI as they try to work around the crippling restrictions set in place by the Saudi government, the film ends with an explosive run to the end zone as everything is tidily wrapped up. When cooperation doesn’t work, the team goes in and does it the old fashioned way, the American way: they storm a neighborhood, blow shit up and kill everybody. There is a winning the big game sensibility to the end of the movie that feels a bit out of step with everything that has come before, especially when Fleury reveals that what he whispered to Mayes (Jennifer Garner) at the beginning of the film was, “I told her we were gonna kill ‘em all.” The scene is mirrored heavy-handedly with the grandson of the arch-terrorist Abu Hamza saying the exact same thing about the Americans.

The great weakness of The Kingdom is that it is a bit too preachy in certain moments, a bit too obvious with the modern history lesson it is trying to teach. This weakness is balanced by the general tension in the film, and the final thirty minutes or so, a final act that is more than worth the price of admission. Peter Berg compared the first two-thirds of the film to a bow with a big arrow being pulled back, and the final act, starting with the freeway shootout, is the release. The metaphor is a strong one, as the final moments of the film are as visceral and kinetic as anything we’ve seen recently. Politics and history, as happens whenever the bullets start to fly, are forgotten, and the moment is the only thing we focus on. All that matters is now.


Video

The Kingdom is presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio. This movie looks hot; the different shades of brown that characterize the desert are sharply rendered. The black and white levels are solid, and the glossy look that covers the whole picture is expertly translated.


Audio

This disc is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, and the presentation is excellent. All channels come through clear and sharp, and everything from the dialogue and the quiet moments to the squealing tires and blazing guns is crisp and perfectly balanced.


Special Features

Deleted Scenes: exactly that.

Character by Character: The Apartment Shootout: this feature allows you to view the climactic apartment shootout from the vantage of whichever character you choose.

Constructing the Freeway Sequence: aside from the director’s commentary, this may be the best piece of bonus material. The piece breaks down the freeway sequence – the arrow being released, as Berg puts it – in great detail, from every angle.

Creating The Kingdom: Peter Berg, Michael Mann, the film’s writer, producer, and the cast talk about everything from the origins of the film and the actual events that inspired the story, to working with the FBI and visiting that agency’s bomb school, creating the combat elements for the film, building the sets and the lack of photo research available, filming in Abu Dhabi and more.

History of The Kingdom: An Interactive Timeline: the timeline from the film’s opening credits is presented here in more detail, from 1932 when the Kingdom was united to today.

Feature Commentary with Director Peter Berg: a great track, very informative. Berg covers everything from the events that inspired the film, to working with the actors, to shooting in the intense Middle Easters heat, to cutting together a scene from pieces shot all over the world. This is worth a listen.


Final Thoughts

The Kingdom gets preachy at times, and the film meanders at times, but overall this is a tense, compelling film with confident direction and strong performances. The disc is well presented. The audio-visual elements are solid, and the bonus material is detailed and interesting.

VERDICT: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

 

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Review posted on Jan 21, 2008 | Share this article | Top of Page

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