Jamie Foxx Movie:

		List Price: $26.98		Label: Universal Studios Home Entertainment Salesrank: 7942 Released: December 23, 2007
		Our Price: $14.71
		Used Price: $11.97
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: HD DVD

Editorial Review:
"A High-Octane Action Movie." -A. O. Scott The New York TimesOscar® winners Jamie Foxx (Collateral) and Chris Cooper (Breach) and Golden Globe® winners Jennifer Garner (Daredevil) and Jason Bateman (Smokin' Aces) ignite the screen in this high-intensity thriller about a team of elite FBI agents sent to Saudi Arabia to solve a brutal mass murder and find a killer before he strikes again. Out of their element and under heavy fire the team must join forces with their Saudi counterparts. As these unlikely allies begin to unlock the secrets of the crime scene the team is led into a heart-stopping do-or-die confrontation.System Requirements:Running Time: 110 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/TERRORISM Rating: R UPC: 025193266521 Manufacturer No: 61032665

Description of The Kingdom (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD]:
Set in Saudi Arabia, The Kingdom is a political action thriller with good acting and wonderful visuals. Its so-so script, though, at times meanders aimlessly until a good explosion jolts the viewer's attention back to the screen. Jamie Foxx stars as FBI special agent Ronald Fleury, who leads an elite team into Saudi Arabia to find the terrorists who attacked American employees working in the Middle East. He has been given the unlikely deadline of five days to infiltrate the compound, with just his wit and his crew, which includes forensics expert Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), explosives guru Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), and intelligence analyst Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman). It's unclear how helpful smarmy U.S. diplomat Damon Schmidt (Jeremy Piven) will be, but Fleury knows enough to surmise that the media-hungry Schmidt might not be completely trustworthy. Foxx and Garner have wonderful screen presence, but it's Bateman and Piven who get the best lines. Director Peter Berg peppers The Kingdom with actors he has worked with in the past. Berg, who guest-starred on Alias opposite Garner, casts Tim McGraw in a small role here. (The country singer also had a co-starring role in Berg's 2004 film Friday Night Lights.) And Kyle Chandler and Minka Kelly--two of Berg's lead actors from the Friday Night Lights television series, , make appearances in The Kingdom. The action sequences he creates are impressive and generate a sense of panic that The Kingdom producer Michael Mann (Miami Vice) undoubtedly applauds. While a tauter script would've rounded out the action nicely, the action in many cases does speak for itself. --Jae-Ha Kim

The Kingdom (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] Reviews:
Witness in the Desert
2008-08-28 - This is a solid movie well-worth seeing.

Ever seen The Witness? Harrision Ford finds himself in an Amish community, having to learn their ways and abide by their rules? You get a lot of that in The Kingdom, but it is done in very interesting and compelling ways.

As if mimicking stories from the headlines, the movie follows four FBI agents as they try to solve a number of terrorist actions in Saudi Arabia. They have five days but they're not allowed to work at night, they can't touch anything, especially Muslim bodies, and they have to be guarded at all times. The real story is how they overcome all of these restrictions and get the job done.

All of the performances are top-notch and believable. The story is well-crafted and tense. I actually watched it twice in one day and was just as drawn into it the second time as I was the first.

The biggest drawback to the movie is its name! We've got The Kingdom, The Kingdom of Heaven, the Forbidden Kingdom, and Indiana Jone's Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, to name a few.

The Kingdom (that's this movie) should be on your list for what to watch this weekend.

Fox & co fight the the terrorists in HD
2008-08-17 - It's too bad that this fine action/themed film did not get it's due at the box office. Well directed by actor Peter Berg who also does a small cameo in this flick, the cast is well served by Oscar winners Jamie Fox & Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner (Alias) and Jason Bateman as FBI agents sent to the Middle East to investigate a bombing which took the lives of civilians, American and Arabs, alike by a terrorist group. The tension is high throughout and the transfer to HD is excellent. Fox more than makes up for his previous bummer, "Stealth", with this winner.

A Superb Thriller
2008-08-05 - From its opening scenes, depicting the Kingdom of Saud and its turbulent modern history following the discovery of oil in its barren deserts, THE KINGDOM sets the table for a white-knuckling political/cultural thriller. And director Peter Berg (so outstanding with 'Friday Night Lights') delivers a keeper, as an elite FBI team of investigators travels into the American compound in Riyadh to investigate the recent slaughter of numerous U.S. citizens--ostensibly perped by terrorists. Berg successfully sets the pace, tone, and tension between the FBI team and their Saudi hosts, then moves the viewer full tilt into a hair-raising climactic action sequence that never takes its foot off the gas.

The cast is topnotch, headlined by Jamie Foxx as the FBI field commander. Foxx is tough, no-nonsense, machismo, yet periodically lets down his guard to show a rippling of emotion and compassion. Jennifer Garner plays the investigative team's forensics expert (and plays it convincingly), while FBI specialists Chris Cooper and Justin Bateman get to share the film's best lines. Country crooner Tim McGraw is impressive in an extremely emotional cameo role, yet this cast is most enhanced by the performance of Ashraf Barhom. Playing a Colonel in the Saudi national police--a Colonel in charge of the team's security--Barhom represents the contrast between his Arab culture and the West. The tension is established from the onset, yet the story delves deep enough into Barhom's character to reveal a humane man with only the best, most honorable intentions.

This is a brutal, violent film--a film with an ending that will definitely raise eyebrows. Yet when it comes to heart-pounding action, intrigue, and suspense--with a story that sprints to the finish line--THE KINGDOM is a thriller as good as it gets.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning

Great action, mixed message
2008-07-28 - A wonderfully executed action movie with a mixed message, The Kingdom stars Jamie Foxx as Ronald Fleury, the leader of an elite group of FBI government agents (which also includes Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman) who are assigned to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East. Things aren't quite what they seem however, and soon enough Fleury and his crew have five days to figure out just what happened. As The Kingdom moves along, Fleury and his crew find unlikely allies and traverse the local politics, leading up to an explosive finale. With everything that The Kingdom does action-wise, it disappoints in it's script. The entire film sends a mixed message that feels as if it doesn't even know what it's trying to convey to the viewer. This isn't always noticeable thanks to the great performances from Foxx and co., and director Peter Berg (Hancock, Friday Night Lights) manages to wonderfully orchestrate some spectacular, and surprising, action sequences. All in all, despite the mixed message that The Kingdom delivers, it's worth seeing for the action elements alone, which are enough to make anyone stand up and cheer.

hollywood pap
2008-07-28 - The movie starts w/a superficial time-line of U.S./Western involvement in Saudi Arabia and recent terrorist events against the U.S. So it starts w/a U.S./Western perspective. The next thing you see is an attack on U.S. corporate compound in Riyadh. Send in the FBI... but this is the Hollywood FBI; Foxx spends a lot of his time looking cool in his shades, Cooper is the male agent who looks concerned all the time & Garner is the female agent who looks concerned all the time and Batemen plays his usual flippant character he's played since the 80's. The political joke in reality and in the movie is the House of Saud would like to minimize the appearance of the U.S. & the West in Saudi Arabia although we still maintain corporate and military compounds in the country. This of course inhibits our FBI team, but not enough to result in the inevitable Hollywood cliched ending. You never really get a better understanding of the House of Saud, Western involvement in the Saudi Arabia or the common man's opinion towards either. It's just cops & robbers in the Middle East. There's no consistency in the model of weapons the FBI agents use and they look like people who've never been trained to hold weapons or work in a 3-4 person group (weird since Foxx was in "Jarhead"). Loads of big name Hollywood stars, but poor performances and a tired story.