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Movie Description
Actor, writer, and director Peter Berg (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) delivers a fearless, action-packed political thriller with THE KINGDOM. Shot in the Middle East with unsettling immediacy, the hand-held cameras put viewers right inside the action, while the tension between American FBI agents and their Saudi counterparts maintains an interesting uncertainty about who's "right" and who's "wrong." The bad guys, however, are unmistakable: the film opens with a brutal terrorist attack on an oil company compound in Saudi Arabia, where a visiting FBI agent is killed. Back home in Washington, fellow agents Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx, RAY) and Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner, ALIAS), want revenge, and will do whatever it takes to gain access to the investigation. Fleury all but blackmails a Saudi prince to get clearance against the wishes of a timorous attorney general, and flies overnight to the scene of the crime. Accompanying him are the no-nonsense forensics expert Mayes, Southern-fried bomb authority Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper, ADAPTATION), and Jewish smart aleck Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT). Once there, they encounter the resistance of a Saudi government more interested in getting the Americans safely out of the country and avoiding conflict, rather than in solving the crime. They are assigned a smarmy handler with a weak stomach (Jeremy Piven, ENTOURAGE) to make sure they stay out of trouble. The team must navigate a maze of bureaucracy to begin collecting evidence, but they have an unlikely ally in their Saudi escort, Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom, PARADISE NOW), a scrupulous and intelligent officer whom Fleury befriends. Soon enough, procedure and protocol give way to car chases and explosive fire fights, and the current bleak political climate of extremism and violence is portrayed in a stark light with no easy answers.
Industry Reviews
"Mr. Berg, an actor whose directing skills improve with each project, shows himself adept at the rapid cutting and hectic camerawork that are fast becoming the lingua franca of action filmmaking."
New York Times - A. O. Scott (09/28/2007)
3 stars out of 4 -- "[A] geopolitical thriller, with an emphasis on the thrills..."
Rolling Stone - Peter Travers (10/04/2007)
"The film opens powerfully....Director Peter Berg's frenetic style heightens tension and a sense of disorientation...."
USA Today - Claudia Puig (09/28/2007)
3 stars out of 5 -- "THE KINGDOM offers an involving portrait of unlikely allies pooling their resources against a common enemy."
Total Film - Neil Smith (11/01/2007)
4 stars out of 5 -- "It's the set-pieces that confirm that Berg is a director to be reckoned with..."
Empire - Helen O'Hara (11/01/2007)
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