Reviews

The Kingdom Directed by Peter Berg

One cannot but have a visceral response to The Kingdom. Acts of terror are meant to gut you or to grab you by the guts and not let go. One leaves this movie with acute discomfort in the viscera. The terror is central to the plot; the hatred which inspires it and the damage it inflicts are just the backdrop.

I wanted to go physically haul my friends out of Saudi Arabia, tell my friends at Aramco that it is first a life or death matter, for them and for us, and secondarily a moral imperative, that they leave their employ immediately. I wanted to stop the release of the movie because the details of the terror plot are too plausible, too easily imitated. Such is the emotional impact of the movie: it achieves the emotional stampede the terrorists wanted to ignite. And yet the depicted terror attacks on the American compound in Riyadh are based on details of attacks which have already occurred. The movie plot does not really goad or teach terrorists to do more; they've already seen these plans enacted. Past attacks are ratcheted up and stacked on top of each other for this movie, and they are horrifyingly successful within the movie's plot line.

Titles over a dizzying montage of real news clips and Frontline voice-overs give a too brief but effective overview of Saudi Arabia's recent history. We are on notice urgently and immediately that Saudi Arabia is a nation very, very different from ours, but that our commonality is Exxon-Mobil, Shell, and other names you know from the corner gas station. Some of the commentary on this movie by early previewers immediately launches into politically correct condemnation of scenes which emphasize "the gulf" between us, the Saudis and Americans. Some fear the perpetuation of Muslim "stereotypes" through the depiction of the terrorist cell. Perhaps their sensitivity blinds them to the fact that the hero of this movie is a Saudi policeman, empowered through (unlikely but) adroit manipulation by the American FBI team to achieve his greatest goal: to find and bring home responsibility to the foul fiend who makes it his practice to train children to kill children.

My biggest criticism of this movie is that the Hollywood dream team for the FBI, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman, are the faces of the investigation, when the abuses and the risks of the investigation belong to Ali Suliman's character. Still, in Friday Night Light's intimate style, too-close-to-the-face hand-held camera work, somehow the humility of that talented but hand-tied policeman is subtly contrasted with the innate arrogance of the American team.

The resistance to allowing American investigators into Saudi Arabia is not overblown: that resistance is not just Saudi Arabian, and very genuine (see reports on investigations of the Kobar Tower bombing, the USS Cole bombing, and the deadly attack on American citizens in Jeddah, inter alia), but also, more cynically, American. The staggeringly improbable plot device that gets the American team into Riyadh is ridiculous, but the movie is educational as to how precarious the ruling class's grasp of power in Saudi Arabia truly is, and how important it is to the U.S. government—and, oh yes, to the oil companies---that we support that regime.

The movie is an action-packed "procedural" whodunit imposed upon and interwoven with this complex inter cultural conflict. Jamie Foxx is the leader of the tiny FBI unit which blackmails its way into Saudi Arabia to investigate a very large crime. Mr. Foxx continues to do really good work. Jennifer Garner is still a kick-ass agent, even if she lacks some of the bionic qualities of her Alias persona. Chris Cooper brings that just-a-little-off sense of individualism to his role of the methodical but highly intuitive investigator. Jason Bateman is the one who doesn't fit. To join such an elite team, he must possess extraordinary gifts to make him valuable, but what those gifts are is a mystery. He is obnoxious, cringingly ignorant of and insensitive to the Saudi culture, and I suppose we must have that character, but he seems to be best-all-round only at being the weakest link, not coming across as particularly smart or competent.

The action sequences are amazing. The car chase/crash scene outdoes The Matrix Reloaded, which set a pretty high benchmark. Explosions and gunfights abound. As an action movie, it scores well.

But as I said, the hero of the piece is a Saudi policeman, Ali Suliman (Paradise Now), on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of imposing civilization on terrorists who plot to destroy decency and any semblance of common humanity. The vignettes with his family are some of the most poignant in the movie. His compelling conversation with a former terrorist now doing "community service" is interrupted needlessly by Jamie Foxx's character. As goal-driven as he is, this is a family man, a decent man, who stands for the best possible values of the Arab world, in spite of some strong forces which might have pushed a lesser man into sympathy with the terrorists.

I hope that Berg will change the final moments of the film. He abandons the subtlety of his earlier observational style for sledgehammer didacticism. Jamie Foxx's final comment doesn't even make sense, in context of the plot. Far better to return to an open question, whether children can overcome an education steeped in prejudice and a steady diet of hatred to forge a better world, or whether killing each other is just too much fun. Berg should forego his too-tidy, too trite symmetry, and leave the viscera to do their work.

Had this movie sustained the cinematic brilliance of its first few minutes, there is no question that it would have been something so out of the ordinary as to become an instant classic. As it is, it may have some cross-and-jostle work to establish itself as one of the Movies of the Year to see, but its flashes of original genius strung together with an operatic plot and dynamic cinematography, make a necklace of great flash and fire. Surely this one, with its embarrassment of talent, will be mentioned in several categories, not only music, at Oscar time. Worth seeing--- absolutely. I can hardly wait for the DVD, so that I can watch its excess to excess.

The film is going to have a generational promotional gap, not just the much-discussed racial one. It can't be dismissed as "the hip-hop Moulin Rouge", as I heard one member of our preview audience critique it coming out of the theater. If she were old enough, she would know that it's more akin to a "hip-hop Caberet", with Rooster (Antwan Andre "Big Boi" Patton of Outkast) as Sally Bowles. Director Bryan Barber may have modelled some camera work on Baz Lurman's spinning kaleidoscopic style, but it is more likely that his music video background was a stronger influence. While there are some similar plot points, this is not really "Moulin Noir"-- but kudos to the cleverness of that shorthand review.

Let's don't go there. Let's talk about what's blazingly new and fresh about this musical. For people who "hate musicals", this one (as Cabaret did) solves the problem of two people in face-to-face dialogue embarrassingly and improbably breaking into song. The musical numbers are the entertainment at "The Church", a speakeasy in the South during Prohibition Era. Entertainment which does have Moulin Rouge's flamboyance, combining a jazz age lindy-hop with hip hop, is dazzlingly choreographed by Tony Award winner Hinton Battle. While Macy Grey is wonderful as a hard-edged club singer, it is Rooster's first musical number at the Church, fusing jazz, cabaret and hip-hop, which blows the lid off.

OutKast fans (I count myself one) have to wait for plot development for the introverted Percival, played by Andre Benjamin, to display his musical talent. We are told it is there from the beginning of the movie, but it is not until he breaks out of his shell to coax the beautiful singer Angel Davenport(Paula Patton) to live her dream that he overcomes his stage fright and showcases his music. And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the centerpiece musical sparkler of this necklace, an impossible fusion number which turns sensational when performed with confidence and style. Oh, my! What talent will do with notes on a page!

"The Church", wryly named to showcase the corruption of bootleg liquor running, gambling and prostitution, is the hang-out for the dapper gangsta-land "Spats", Ving Rhames, who keeps the lid on violence in the "Showtime at the Apollo" club atmosphere and the dangerous business of squeezing both his booze supplier and the club owner, Sunshine Ace. We despise Ace more than anyone in the movie, until we get to know Trumpy (chillingly played by the gorgeous Terence Howard), who also comes out of his "shell" to reveal himself as a stupid and sadistic killer. The odd flatness of Howard's voice is powerfully used here to underscore his stupidity and the delight he has in killing people.

When greats like Ben Vereen and Cicely Tyson are little more than cameos, you know you have talent to spare. My one concern is that the music style may be too much fusion to keep the hip-hop fans happy, and the movie may be too hip-hop to attract the general audience it deserves. The horrid truth is that I am a middle-aged white woman, one of the two demographic segments supposed to love musicals. But while my credibility is suspect, my general film-critiquing skills are generally pretty solid. Abandon your preconceptions and your prejudices, whatever they are, and Just Go See.

Not only an endearing, entertaining and environmentally intelligent documentary, this film is also funny, thought-provoking and inspiring. The story of Mark Bittner's journey to become the expert on and the caretaker of the flock of wild parrots of Telegraph Hill, while avoiding most of the appearances of being connected to society or to society's values along the way, certainly makes one wonder about the importance of some of the taken-for-granted symbols of success. The respect he earns for the study of the birds is a result of the intelligence, sensitivity, and acute observation skills he brings to his passion, while he wryly maintains a charmingly self-deprecating view of himself-- even if he DOES deny being eccentric. What's wrong with eccentric? It is a movie about the parrots as much as about Mark. If you can watch this movie and not be convinced of the individuality of the birds' personalities, then you are hopelessly anthropocentric. If you watch Mingus dance and are not convinced he's enjoying the music, or if Connor's story in no way moves you, then you may have become far too limited in your view of the world; a bird's eye view is certainly called for. This is a quirky and lovely story, lovingly told. I did not find the ending to be a surprise, as many did, but agree that it was uplifting.

Congratulations to director Judy Irving. Like the other reviewers, I will buy the DVD because this is one I'll want to see again over time. A-