Review of The Kingdom (1994) by Dawud A — 24 Mar 2013

"The Kingdom" has emerged as one of the most underrated movies of 2007. Sure, it's part CSI and part Black Hawk Down, but it's 100% entertaining from its cool history lesson opening credits to its pensive closing good guy/bad guy comparitive montage. Peter Berg is a kinetic but perceptive director, and he finds a great balance between technical procedures, character development, and some fast and furious action scenes. The political jargon is fast enough to not get boring, and it's simple to understand without being patronizing to the audience. The character scenes are impressive and a lot more personal than you'd expect in this type of movie. There's a star-making performance by Ashraf Barhom as an Arabian colonel. His relationship with Jamie Foxx's Ronald Fleury is the heart and soul of the movie. The movie has a couple of explosions in it's first hour, but the real action doesn't come until the final 3rd of the movie, when it really matters to the story and the characters. It's pretty awesome stuff too.

The only complaint I probably have is the film's treatment of Jennifer Garner. I mean, she's a pretty big star, you could give her something to do. The camera is shaky, but I never felt that I couldn't tell what was going on, like say in a Paul Greengrass movie. A lot of people are giving the movie crap for its Jeremy Piven cameo and how much it resembles his character on "Entourage", but I liked it. Stick to what you're good at, you know? Anyway, the film is gripping and compelling the whole way through. Watch it.