The Kingdom

The Kingdom – 2007, Peter Berg

I’ve seen a handful of ‘Post Iraq Invasion’ films recently including Syriana (2005), Green Zone (2010) and Body of Lies (2008).

The general consensus would be that The Kingdom is the least praiseworthy of all these films, but I disagree. Each of these films is about American interests in the Middle East and the conflict and terrorism that take place because of them. They are all well worth a watch but none are perfect.

Syriana isn’t as clever as it thinks it is and Green Zone is actually a very unhealthy fantasy about some guys in the brief post-invasion/pre-occupation period in Iraq, guys who knew an insurgency was imminent and tried to stop it, but they were stopped by the suits in Washington who had a political agenda. Matt Damon spends the first half of the film banging on about WMDs (or lack of them), and the second half trying to stop the insurgency before it starts. It’s a war film that’s told retrospectively by the guy’s who kind of won, pretending that maybe they almost got it right. Unwholesome in my opinion.

It’s been too long since I saw Body of Lies but I seem to remember enjoying it.

But back to The Kingdom. Actor turned Producer/Director Peter Berg’s resume is full of films and TV shows you may have seen but were never very impressed by, so The Kingdom is perhaps his stand out work (though I’ve not seen Friday Night Lights).
The Kingdom is a thriller set in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the wake of a terrorist attack on an American compound. Jamie Foxx leads the cast but don’t let that put you off. The first half of the film plays out like a detective story, then for the final act it ascends (or descends depending upon your opinion) into a prolonged action sequence where the good guys never reload and the bad guys can’t shoot for shit.

As a man who’s sat through more than a few action films you can take it from me that as these things go, The Kingdom does its’ action sequences very well. How Peter Berg went on to make such a mess of the second half of Hancock is a mystery.