Posted on 09/28/2007 1:53:08 PM PDT by LS
Edited on 09/28/2007 2:36:32 PM PDT by Lead Moderator. [history]
This action/thriller could have devolved into a giant PC "can't-we-all-get-along" tolerance-fest. Fortunately, except for a line at the end (no, I won't spoil it), it does not. It brings home the lack of freedom present in Saudi Arabia, combined with the best in suspense and action. Although Jamie Foxx is clearly the star, the ensemble that includes Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and Ashraf Barhoum keeps the focus on solving the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound, not on personalities.
Directed by Peter Berg ("The Rundown," "Very Bad things"), the story follows four FBI agents who desperately want to go to Saudi Arabia to find out who killed 100 Americans, including one of their colleagues. Through subtle blackmail, Foxx (Special Agent Ronald Fleury) convinces the Saudi ambassador to "insist" on obtaining the FBI's help---despite the fact the politicians in Washington want to leave it in the hands of the Saudis. Fleury's team arrive on what is essentially Mars: they cannot have firearms, passports, cannot touch evidence, cannot even poke around at the "crime" scene; they may not touch dead Muslims at all; and the Saudi men nearly have a heart attack when Garner (Special Agent Janet Mayes) steps off the plane in a tight t-shirt. They face further obstructions in the form of the local U.S. representative, Damon Schmidt (played ever so smarmily by Jeremy Piven). And they are given only five days to solve the "crime," although the line between terrorists and criminals is appropriately blurred.
The bombing scene is horrific: a compound baseball game is interrupted by literally a "drive-by" shooting (no, not the U.S. media---the other terrorists). But that's a diversion for the suicide bomber, who takes out a good 20 people. . . . but he's just a diversion for the truck bomber, who kills over 100 in a gruesome explosion. Director Berg does not go overboard, but he does show enough to get the revenge juices flowing.
Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhoum), a Saudi military policeman, is the only competent Saudi on the scene, but he's subordinate to his blunt-force Army general. Fleury pockets enough evidence that he convinces Al Ghazi to let the team work; and in turn, through a meeting with Prince Khaled, Al Ghazi and Fleury gain enough clout to seriously investigate.
Trailers say don't miss the last 30 minutes. That's because the terrorists decide to take out the agents, first through the old car-bomb trick, then by snatching one of them (Adam Leavitt, played by Jason Bateman) from the explosion scene so they can behead him in front of the camera.
Neither Al Ghazi nor Fleury's team will allow that to happen, tracking the terrorists in a high-speed chase to their lair in an apartment building, where Mayes (naturally, the female always manages to separate herself from the rest of the group) stumbles upon a tied-up and gagged Leavitt and blasts away at the bad guys. The outcome of this battle within a battle even elicited cheers from our small audience in mid-afternoon, and other reviewers say audiences everywhere erupt in cheers over the conclusion of this scene.
While there is something of an obligatory "violence begets violence" line at the end, it's a throwaway. The audiences know what has happened: the Americans and their decent ally have kicked terrorist butt. A number of scenes, however, subtly show how immense the task ahead of us is, because for every Al Ghazi we see in the movie, there are at least three bomb-makers, all missing a couple of fingers. On many levels, this movie depicts the larger struggle behind the War on Terror, namely the fight for liberty over an oppresive religous world-view.
BY THE WAY, ALL, HEADS UP: I forgot to mention a preview of a movie (forget the title) about an Arab American who is “unjustly” nabbed by our security at an airport and whisked off to Egypt or some other friendly country for “questioning.” It’s all about the evil Patriot Act/War on Terror/Club Gitmo!
I loved the True Lies movie: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Lies
Thanks, I was hoping to find a review on FR. Thank you very much
I watched the trailers but was wondering if this Tom Clancey/Dale Brown/Stephan Coonts fan would like it.
Question, should we leave our 15 year old at her friends house?
After watching “24” back track on Muslim terrorists I didn’t think Hollywood could make a movie that laid the blame squarely at the feet of Islam. But this was a total repudiation of Wahabbi Islam as practiced in Saudi Arabia. This is every Americans dream of what should be done but never will.
Only movie I want to see is The Kingdom.....is now a parking lot!
Maybe it’s just me but I think Jamie Foxx is one of the best actors out there. Problem is he has to have a hell of a script to get him to really act. Great in Dreamgirls, Ray, and Any Given Sunday. And he was the only redeeming cast member of Jarhead.
Hell of step up from Booty Call :)
And if Shlussel thinks Saudi Arabia comes out looking good in this, then she's completely off base. Completely.
That depends on what your standards are, but there is a lot of language. No sex. Plenty of violence and tense situations: the captive is about to be beheaded. Do they get there? No spoilers.
Except for the fact that the Saudis supply major funding to terrorists organizations throughout the world and promote their extreme form of islam. Anyway, what does this have to do with the IRA and the Brits? And Arab terrorists have been killing Americans since 1970.
Most movie reviewers are liberals. There are very few I trust.
This sounds like it's worth going out of my the way to see.
Wow, I can’t believe they were able to make a movie like this.
Thanks for the great review, LS.
According to the IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431197/locations
the film was shot in Abu Dhabi and Arizona.
The bad guys are named and they are Wahabis, 9-11 is referenced as an act of Islamic terror right in the beginning, the good guys have a Christian symbol on the office wall, the good guys win, the bad guys die, I liked it!
My feelings for the House of Saud I cannot adequately express. @#$%^&*()_+!!!!!
Ahhh...interesting ~ Thanks!
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