The Kingdom (2007)

Peter Berg is misunderstood. Either by me, or by the people who market his films.

Take Friday Night Lights, which, in my estimation, is simply the greatest sport film to ever grace the silver screen. To me, it was a brutal examination of the extent to which sports have taken over the average American's life, serving as a proxy for all of the worthwhile things that we aren't achieving and allowing us to deal with the quiet desperation of our insulated lives. If it isn't that far reaching, it seemed at least to be a condemnation of the tenor that high school football has reached in Texas, where coaches make more than any three teachers combined and the stadium could easily serve an NCAA team.

However, if you watch the trailer that Universal Studios put together to sell the DVD, all you see is the same ol' feel good sports movie that debuts every year around Christmas time (e.g. Miracle, Remember the Titans, The Mighty Ducks, etc.)

And then we have The Kingdom.

Yesterday I stopped by my local red box with the somewhat unfounded hope that it might contain something I wanted to see. It didn't, so I settled for The Kingdom, a Berg movie that was marketed like this:



After seeing this trailer several times last year, I fully expected to hate The Kingdom, because it looked like every other action movie ever made -- intended to stoke U.S. fears of the "other," while convincing us that there's no geopolitical problem that a good ass-kicking can't solve.

Instead, Berg served up a decently taut movie that only flirted with absolutes, gave us a sympathetic Muslim hero, delivered what I thought was a great tongue-in-cheek performance by Jamie Foxx as the all-American hero (I hope that was what was intended,) and finished on the disheartening note that all of the bullet firing and Arab-killing that we witnessed over the course of the movie just might have made the problem of terrorism worse, rather than solving it.

I won't go too far with my praise, as this movie was far from perfect. The Kingdom was at its best while showing the orphans that were created on both sides of the battle scenes. It was at its worst when portraying the Saudi male as a witless chauvinist who assumed that all women wished to be swathed in pink at all times. The story line and detective work are also depressingly straightforward (gee, do you think Abu Hamza was behind the explosions? And who would have guessed that the story arc might take us back to the neighborhood of Suweidi?)

Despite its flaws, The Kingdom kept me entertained and even engaged my cerebral cortex at times, which is more than I can say for many of the movies I've seen lately (ahem, Vanatage Point.) The DVD even came with an interactive time line based on the opening credits of the movie which explores the history of Saudi Arabia and the complex reality of its relation to Wahhabism, oil and the United States.

After this, I may actually need to give Peter Berg's Hancock a chance -- it could turn out that what the trailers made look like a gimmicky, facile popcorn movie is actually a commentary on the emasculation of the consumerist male.

Or maybe not.