The new action thriller The Kingdom poses two questions right off the bat: First, "What is America doing in the Middle East?" and second, "How far up the Middle East's ass will America place its boot if American interests there are messed with?" The film dispenses with the first question in fairly short order with a little historical preamble and then pursues the second with faux-documentary gusto, building up to a climax of vengeful wish-fulfillment. For the cherry on top, it offers a little war-is-not-healthy-for-children-and-other-living-things coda that's already been cited by one of the film's neocon admirers as an unfortunate instance of moral equivalence. Given that the bit in question is delivered with all the conviction one might apply to throwing away a Kleenex, it's not likely to spoil anyone's fun too much.
The picture begins with a heinous terrorist attack on an American compound in Saudi Arabia. You want loaded, this picture's got loaded: The bad guys mow down/blow up a softball game, for heaven's sake. "Crack" FBI-op Ronald Fleury (Foxx) is addressing his young son's classroom when the call comes in. No My Pet Goat moment for this man of action — he politely excuses himself and assembles a "crack" investigative team including bomb expert Cooper and forensics whiz Garner. What Bateman brings to the team, as far as I could tell, is a mint-condition vintage Pixies T-shirt. His character's also Jewish, which, along with Garner's character's disinclination to wear a burka, gives the movie some not particularly fresh cultural-conflict juice. (Speaking of not particularly fresh, Piven's turn as a glib embassy type isn't what you'd call a groundbreaking performance.) As does the dialogue; discussing American pop-culture icons, as one is always apt to do in the Middle East, Foxx tells the sympathetic Saudi police guy who he's working with that some television character (okay, okay — it's Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, and not the wrestler — see, I took notes) is "my shit." The Saudi then asks, "Oh, you need bathroom?" Oh these silly people and their hilarious inability to parse American colloquial English! Don't they get Gwen Stefani records over there?
Foxx's team's investigation hinges in part on explosive charges that look like beautiful blue marbles, which leads to one of the film's would-be "what incredible irony" moments after its climactic highway shootout. Said shootout, and much else in the picture, is rendered in the best Paul Greengrass manner that Hollywood money can buy. But where Greengrass pictures aim to keep one on the edge of one's seat throughout, the tension here, such as it is, is designed to stoke audience bloodlust. If that's your kind of thing, The Kingdom certainly satisfies.
READ MORE: Justin Batemen Q&A
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