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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Universal Studios
Salesrank: 12921
Released: December 26, 2007 |
| Our Price: $1.85 |
| Used Price: $0.68 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
"A High-Octane Action Movie." -A. O. Scott, The New York Times Oscar® 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.
Description of The Kingdom (Full Screen Edition):
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 (Full Screen Edition) Reviews:
Saudi holds the origins of corruption; the sad part is that this was never a secret! 
2009-11-30 - FBI agents investigate terrorism related crime scenes and encounter serious life threatening incidents that eventually raise very important questions? Where and how al-Qaeda started? How is it related to the Gulf War and oil business? Why are we all blind to the obvious? And why this hell will never end if we don't achieve universal political maturity?
Enjoy the action packed scenes and be patient until the final scene that reveals the secret craziness, which is more complex than it seems. I hope that viewers will be open minded enough to understand the hidden message and not get tangled in yet another cycle of hatred.
Realistic view of current terrorist situation around the world.
2009-11-20 - Everyday, you see on the news something somewhere the 'Terrorist' do terrible things. This portrays one situation from eye-view!
The role of the Saudi colonel with a heart kept this film from being formulaic
2009-07-29 - This film seemed interesting because it was set in Saudi Arabia and plays to the paranoia that most Americans have about the Middle East. Jamie Fox, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman are cast as FBI agents who are sent on a mission to discover who, exactly, attacked the American compound, killing innocent family members of oil executives. Naturally they encounter obstacles as they get little cooperation from the Saudi government with the exception of a colonel, played by Ashraf Barhom, a family man himself with a sense of integrity and who really does his best to help the Americans. That's the premise.
The film is full of those long chase and shoot-em-up scenes that are required in a modern geopolitical thriller such as this. Perhaps they would have been more impressive in a theater, but they lose their effectiveness on a regular TV screen and I was soon bored with them. The acting was adequate and what can be expected in a film like this but the most impressive performance was that of the Saudi Colonel whose humanity kept the film from falling into a formulaic good-guy - bad guy format.
Filmed in Arizona, the film did its best to recreate what Americans tend to think of as the Middle East. But why, then, was Jennifer Garner allowed to run around in bare arms and a bulletproof vest when while all other females in the cast were covered from head to toe in black burkhas?
I really shouldn't be reviewing this film because I'm just not into this type of a flick. I therefore give it a mild recommendation as an action film set in an unusual location. It didn't seem genuine to me but I know I'm not the target audience.
Excellent Service 
2009-07-01 - Great sercie. Will use again.
Dianna Wells Shire, author "The Ordinary Life of a Military Woman"
Enjoyable 
2009-06-09 - A by-the-numbers thriller, although pretty well done. One review called 'Syriana For Dummies', which is probably both unfair and yet appropriate. The best performance in the movie is by the Israeli actor Ashraf Barhom, who plays the Saudi secret police chief.
