THE KINGDOM - review by Zane Henry for IOL

The Kingdom opens with a history-in-60-seconds opening scene laying out the more salient bookmarks in America's involvement with the oil-rich Middle East and the current Iraqi war.

Cut to a little-league baseball game populated by smiling families. It's an idyllic scene straight from the heart of Americana. Except, it's actually playing out in a Saudi Arabian compound by employees of an American oil conglomerate.

A ferocious terrorist attack rips the little community to shreds. The FBI is charged with investigating the attack, but Washington heads refuse to authorise any official American action. Driven FBI agent, Ronald Fleury (Foxx) ignores the mandate, assembles his own small team and heads off to the Middle East to investigate.

While the Saudis are initially wary of these American interlopers, the leading Saudi officer (Ashraf Barhom) eventually decides to co-operate with Fleury's team. They comb the crime scene for clues and interview witnesses in the hope of tracking down the culprits.

The Kingdom is a taut action-thriller and problematic political film. It gets the blood pumping with adrenalised set-pieces, particularly the white-knuckled final chase scene.

The problem is the slight square-jawed, gung-ho, Stars-and-Stripes ra-ra overtone. Director Peter Berg takes stabs at objectivity, but these are fumbled in the dark. The drive of the film is one-dimensional and comes off as bullish American patriotism. I hate to pander to this clichéd view of Americans, but Berg's statements are too simplistic.

Jason Bateman's character's kidnapping in particular rankles me. It's a riff on the broadcast beheadings of foreigners by jihadists. But the outcome is so contrived and crowd-pleasing that it's disrespectful to the real-life tragedy of the victims.

A Mighty Heart showed that this topic can be handled with sensitivity and still be compelling.

Admittedly, these are two different kinds of films.

All this pseudo-intellectual musing won't matter to action junkies who will flock to it regardless of sticky politics. Still, The Kingdom strikes me as exploitative, despite its good intentions.

6/10