"The Kingdom"

Jamie Foxx
Chris Cooper
Jennifer Garner
Jason Bateman
Jeremy Piven
Danny Huston
Richard Jenkins
Ashraf Barhom
Ali Suliman
Kyle Chandler
Frances Fisher
Ashley Scott
Anna Deavere Smith

R           119min           2007

When a terrorist bomb detonates inside a Western housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an international incident is ignited. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury quickly assembles an elite team and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the madman behind the bombing. – from Universal Pictures

“The Kingdom”is one of my personal favorite war movies. It is not only a good drama but it’s a good action film. It brought to light situations about the war and the country of Saudi Arabia that I never knew. It contains an outstanding cast that brought what it took to make this film what it is. It is a film, I think, everyone will love; it is just that good.

This film pleases both sides of your brain. The action is gritty, realistic, and in your face. The drama and plot is intelligent and believable. It pulls no punches.

One of the elements that make “The Kingdom” works is that uses realistic culture situations to move the drama. From how much we have influence there technologic, grow to the second-class citizenship of women. It showed how we all have cultural biases, which influence our thinking and the way we interact with other cultures. However it also shows how much cultural similarities we also have.

Peter Berg does a great job of directing this film. He uses an outstanding cast to tell his story and shots that bring the audience into the film. The cast is at the top of their game and melded together excellently. They capture the emotions of the audience. Let the audience get lost in the drama. The action makes you film like you are a fly on the wall of a drama that just a small piece of a bigger picture.

There is a feature commentary with director Peter Berg. There are a few deleted scenes. There are four behind the scene featurettes, Character by Character: The Apartment Shootout, Constructing the Freeway Sequence, Creating the Kingdom, and History of the Kingdom, an interactive timeline. There is only one movie preview “White Noise 2”.

I give it 5/5 Gs.