The Kingdom (2007)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2007
	Director: Peter Berg (Deepwater Horizon, The Rundown, Hancock, Battleship, Lone Survivor)
	Actors: Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained, Collateral), Chris Cooper (11.22.63, American Sniper), Jennifer Garner (Daredevil, Elektra), Jason Bateman (Horrible Bosses, The Hangover 1-3)
	Country: USA
	Genre: War, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 28.05.2017, VOD, 32" TV screen
Synopsis: When a brutal terrorist attack hits an American civil base in Saudi Arabia, FBI agent Ronald Fleury (Foxx) would do anything to be sent there and allowed to help in the investigation.
Review: The opening credits of this movie do a good job at setting/reminding the historical background between Saudi Arabia and the USA. Of course petrol is at the heart of it. This fictional 2007 movie takes place in the post-9/11 atmosphere that we all know, with a special emphasis on the strain in the relationship between two allied countries in those tense times (fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi), seen not from the political level but from the level of low-ranking FBI officers on one side and cops on the other. That is the great idea of this movie. We get to learn and like the two main Saudi cops, while the four Americans are more easy to quickly understand: Foxx very driven (by the death of a friend), Bateman slightly out of place but in fact present to bring some comedy, Cooper for experience and Garner for the mandatory female touch in this men's world. They have to cross many cultural and political hurdles to be able to conduct any investigation on site, and we follow this slow progression (it is a very basic investigation at first) until it takes a faster pace and the movie evolves more towards a war movie in its last act which is very intense. I was bothered because I couldn't understand all dialogs (Cooper and Bateman mumble a lot) so I could have felt more involved in the story, but apart from that it is an efficient movie about terrorism, on the investigation and revenge side, not psychological or historical one. At any rate much more realistic than any White House Down (also starring Foxx by the way) even in spite of the all-guns-out last act.
Rating: 6 /10