| The Kingdom | |
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Promotional movie poster |
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| Directed by | Peter Berg |
| Written by | Matthew Michael Carnahan |
| Starring | Jamie Foxx Chris Cooper Jennifer Garner Jason Bateman Kyle Chandler Richard Jenkins Jeremy Piven Ashraf Barhom Ali Suliman |
| Music by | Danny Elfman |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | United States: September 28, 2007 United Kingdom: October 5, 2007 |
| Running time | 109 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English Arabic |
| Budget | $70 million |
| Gross revenue | $86,578,768 |
The Kingdom is a 2007 film directed by Peter Berg and starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Ashraf Barhom, with Kyle Chandler, Jeremy Piven and Ali Suliman.
The film is fictional, but inspired by bombings at the Riyadh compound on May 12, 2003 and the Khobar housing complex on June 26, 1996 in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The story follows a team of FBI agents who investigate the bombing of a foreign-workers facility in Saudi Arabia. Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan has summarised the plot as "What would a murder investigation look like on Mars?”[1].
The film was screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as its yearly 'Surprise Movie' on 22 August 2007.[2] The film has been rated R by the MPAA for "Intense Sequences of Graphic Brutal Violence and Language". It received ratings of MA15+ in Australia, 15 in the United Kingdom and 15A in Ireland.
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The opening scene of the movie explains how oil drilling has transformed the Middle East and Abroad in a timeline sequence. It portrays the conflicts that have risen since the late 1940's for the rightful ownership of the Oil Industry. This includes the United States' involvement in Iraq and al-Qaeda's growing network of terrorism. Eventually, it explains the 9/11 terrorism attacks and how 80% of the hijackers were Saudi's. This raises serious questions on the relationship between Saudi and the United States. The plot begins with the current struggle of Saudi Arabi and the Kingdom's efforts to stand control of their country against terrorist extremists.
During a game of softball played by American citizens in their oil company's housing compound, terrorists set off a bomb, killing many Americans, as well as Saudi State Police. The terrorists impersonated Saudi State Police members and while one team hijacked a car and started shooting residents of the area, another one ran out onto the baseball diamond, pretending to aid the Americans, but then reveals that he is a suicide bomber and blows himself up, along with everyone near him. Sergeant Haytham of the Saudi State Police, disables the stolen SSP vehicle and kills the occupants. The FBI's Legal Attache in Saudi Arabia, Special Agent Francis Manner, calls up his colleague Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) to tell him about the attack. Shortly after this a second bomb explodes in the compound killing more people, including Manner.
Back in the U.S., Fleury briefs his FBI team on the happenings in the Kingdom, and Special Agent Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), a forensic examiner, breaks down in tears upon hearing of Francis' death. Fleury whispers something into her ear which causes her to control her emotions. While the higher-ups deny them permission to visit, Fleury blackmails the Saudi ambassador into letting them use a Saudi plane to get into the country in order to conduct an investigation. Fleury and his team of Mayes, Leavitt (Jason Bateman), an intelligence analyst and Special Agent Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), a bomb technician, go to Saudi Arabia, where they are met by Colonel Faris al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), the commander of the Saudi State Police force tasked with policing the compound. The Americans come to find that al-Ghazi is not in charge of the investigation, whose duties have been relegated to General Al Abdulmalik (Mahmoud Said) of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, who does not give them permission to investigate, rather they are to observe the investigation.
When the FBI team is invited to Prince Ahmed bin Khaled's (Omar Berdouni) palace for a dinner, Mayes is excluded because of her gender, Fleury takes the opportunity to convince the Prince that Colonel al-Ghazi is a natural detective, and should be allowed to lead the investigation. With this new change in leadership, the Americans are allowed a hands on approach to the crime scene and discover that the second bomb was set off in an Ambulance, and the bombs used marbles as projectiles. This revelation leads them to discover that the brother of one of the terrorists had access to ambulances and State Police uniforms, and the Police raid the house, managing to kill a few heavily armed men. The Americans are then told that they have to go home, by their Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission Damon Schmidt (Jeremy Piven). However Fleury and al-Ghazi both believed that the men, who were just teenagers that they had just killed were just amateur fighters, and were not the real planners behind the attacks.
On their way to the airport, Fleury notices a youth watching their convoy from an overpass, and then sees that the last SUV of their convoy has stopped far behind them, he then notices a speeding car coming towards them and grabs the wheel from Sergeant Haytham (Ali Suliman) which allows them to partially evade the collision that occurs when the speeding car runs into the first SUV of their convoy, setting off a trunk full of bombs. Their SUV, the third one in their convoy, hits the first SUV killing the men inside. The fourth SUV finally drives up and the men inside pull out Leavitt, throw him into the back and drive away while a second car drives by to shoot the surviving Americans. Fleury manages to wound one attacker, and al-Ghazi commandeers a civilian vehicle to chase the fourth SUV and the other car into the dangerous Suweidi neighborhood of Riyadh. As they pull up, a gunman launches a rocket at them and a fire fight starts. Inside the complex, Leavitt is tied up and gagged while his attackers prepare to tape a video of his beheading.
After having killed their attackers, al-Ghazi decides that three of them must enter and find Leavitt and two must stay behind and cover the entrance. While Sykes and Haytham watch the entrance, al-Ghazi, Fleury and Mayes enter the building, following a blood trail and manage to finish off many other gunmen inside. Mayes, separate from the other two, scares a little girl in an apartment, and she enters to find a family with little children, their mother and grandfather. She yells at them to stay put and goes across the hall to another apartment to find Leavitt and his attackers. She kills the remaining insurgents, and al-Ghazi and the team start to leave. However, Mayes feels unsettled about the little girl, and walks in to give the girl a lollipop. In return the girl gives her a marble, matching the ones pieced together earlier from the bomb scene. Fleury then realises that there is a trail of blood leading to the back of the apartment, and al-Ghazi sees the grandfather, suspects something and asks to help him up in order to inspect his hand. When the old man gives him his hand, al-Ghazi sees that the man is missing the fingers that [3] is missing in the terrorist groups many videos and confirms his idea that the grandfather is the terrorist leader. Abu Hamza's teenage grandson walks out of the bedroom and manages to shoot al-Ghazi in the neck twice with a pistol before it jams, prompting Fleury to kill him. Abu Hamza then feebly pulls out an assault rifle and Haytham puts three shots in his chest. As Abu Hamza dies, his younger grandson hugs him and Abu Hamza whispers something into his ear to calm the child down. Al-Ghazi dies in Fleury's arms.
At Al-Ghazi's house, Fleury and Haytham meet his family. Fleury tells his son that al-Ghazi was his good friend, mirroring a similar scene earlier in the movie where he comforted Special Agent Manner's son. The Americans return home, and Leavitt has one final question for Fleury: what did he whisper to Mayes to calm her down? The scene cuts to Abu Hamza's daughter asking her son what his grandfather whispered to him as he was dying. Fleury recalls saying "We're gonna kill them all," while the grandson tells his mother, "Don't fear them, my child. We are going to kill them all."
Prior to filming, director Peter Berg spent two weeks in Saudi Arabia doing research for the film.[4] Filming commenced July 10, 2006, on the west side of the old Maricopa County Courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Additional scenes were being filmed concurrently in Mesa, Arizona; the scenes at the American compound were shot at the Polytechnic campus of Arizona State University.[5] In some of the trailer frames, saguaro cacti are visible in the background.
On August 14th, 2006 assistant prop master Nick Papac died on set when the cart he was driving collided with a sport utility vehicle carrying the film’s director, Pete Berg. Two other people were with Papac but were not injured. Filming resumed one day after the incident.
On-location filming took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates for two weeks in mid-September.[4] Since Universal Pictures does not have an office in the Middle East, the production was facilitated by a local production firm called Filmworks, based in Dubai.[6] Filming also took place at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi.[7][8] The film's production cost $80 million.[9] The Kingdom was released on DVD December 20th, 2007.
The Kingdom opened to mixed reviews. Based on 17 reviews, the film averaged a 55 on Metacritic.[10] Rotten Tomatoes reported that 53% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 120 reviews.[11]
Weekly Standard columnist John Podhoretz called the film "perfectly paced" and "remarkably crisp and satisfying", arguing that it evokes the films The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Dog Day Afternoon, and The New Centurions.[12] New York Times critic A.O. Scott called it "a slick, brutishly effective genre movie". He also stated that "Just as Rambo offered the fantasy of do-over on Vietnam, The Kingdom can be seen as a wishful revisionist scenario for the American response to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism."[13] Evan Williams of The Australian called it "an excellent thriller" and stated that it "may be the first Hollywood film to confront Saudi involvement in international terrorism."[14]
New York Post critic Lou Lumenick stated that "Hollywood provides the Islamic world another reason to hate America with The Kingdom," calling it "xenophobic" and "pandering."[15] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly accused the film of "treating its audience like cash-dispensing machines".[16] Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times called it "a slick excuse for efficient mayhem that's not half as smart as it would like to be." He added that "the film's thematic similarity to those jingoistic World War II-era 'Yellow Peril' films makes it hard not to feel your humanity being diminished."[17]
My view, the view of an english expat-girl- The idea of even trying to convey such a drama is ridiculous to begin with. The way that the terrorist attacks (especially the Riyadh attacks in 2003) were approached by the media in the western world was appauling, in my belief, and creating a film attempting any such thing was highly inappropriate and inconsiderate. If someone felt the need to create a film about such awful events they should not have "based it on" any specific event- why not simply base it on the idea of terrorism in the world in general rather than specify attacks of two years. The basic facts such as what the events actually were are likely to have some truth, but nobody could understand how those people felt who's lives were destroyed in one moment in time. I have lived between both England and Saudi since 1995 now, my family and I are British-expats and the one thing I can say to anybody that cannot even begin to comprehend what life is like there [Saudi] as nobody could if they hadn't experienced it first hand, or at least a similar set up such as Quatar or the UAE- I feel alot safer living in Saudi than I ever do in the United Kingdom, my own home country! regardless of what those monsterous animals did to the compounds, the Saudi's themselves are welcoming and wonderful people.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi of Asia Times Online called it "a pseudo-realist action movie that succeeds only if we degrade ourselves to adolescent Americans' perception of world affairs" and "non-stop nonsense from beginning to end." He accused the film of "FBI-worship", "Saudi-bashing", and "Islamophobia".[18] Faisal Abbas, media editor of the London-based international Arabic journal Asharq Al Awsat, wrote on the newspaper's English website that "despite some aspects which might be perceived by some as negative, many might be pleasantly surprised after watching this film, bearing in mind that Arabs have for a long time been among Hollywood's favorite villains." Faisal concluded that "In all cases, the film is definitely action-packed, and perhaps Saudis and Arabs may enjoy it more than Americans, as events are depicted as taking place in the Saudi capital…and it is not every day that you watch a Hollywood-style car chase happening on the streets of Riyadh. For Westerners, the movie might be an interesting “insight” to a culture that is very different to their own."[19]
The film grossed $17.1 million in 2,733 theaters in the United States and Canada on its opening weekend, ranking #2 at the box office.[20] It also grossed £919,537 in the United Kingdom[9], about $1.9 million.[21] As of December 15, 2007, the film has grossed an estimated $47,536,778 in the United States and $39,042,352 at the foreign box office with a worldwide gross of $86,579,130[22]
The film has been extremely successful in the rental market, grossing $77.4 million in the United States as of April 13 2008.[23]
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