nan | 楠木

The Kingdom, starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, is a well-made action thriller that features an interesting backdrop – US and Saudi Arabia’s complicated relationship.

The narrative starts right from the opening credits, where a concise but fascinating recap of the relationship’s history is shown, of which oil plays a central part. The real opening of the story is located in a secure compound in Saudi Arabia where US expatriates live. A horrendous act of terrorism happens, setting the stage of the rest of the film.

The aforementioned foursome makes up a special FBI field-unit sent to Saudi Arabia to help investigate the crime (after some political blackmailing to get the entry ticket). The local police, sent to assist, is at first more interested in keeping things quiet than solving the puzzle. However, the FBI team still manages to push things forward, and slowly the plot begins to unravel.

Except the opening and the final 25 minutes, the rest of this 100-minute feature film is more focused on detective work rather than gunplay. Many critics have dubbed it CSI: Saudi Arabia, or some other term, and to a large extent that’s a fitting description. However, the film does try to go beyond the typical genres, and throw in some extra food for thought. There’s quite a few scenes that poke about the broader political backdrop and the cultural conflict that is inherent.

But at its core this is still a popcorn flick instead of a serious political drama. For action junkies, the majority of the film might be a yawn, but the last 25 minutes deliver quite a punch. The action is bloody and intense, and the tension is well maintained.

Which is strange then, after the bullets have been fired and the bad guys are dead, for the film to suddenly deliver a very sober and somewhat eerie closing sequence. During one of the film’s opening scenes, Jamie Foxx whispers something to Jennifer Garner to comfort her, after hearing the news that one of their colleagues was killed in the terrorist act. In the closing moments, Jason Bateman asks what Foxx had said. In parallel, two relatives of the dead bad guy – a child and her mother are having a similar conversation, the mother asking what the child’s grandfather had whispered to him during his dying moments. We find that it’s the same sentence: “We’ll kill them all.”

So indeed, we’re not that different, after all.

7/10