ACED Magazine

American families are outside on a warm and sunny afternoon. All seem to be enjoying themselves, many playing baseball and joking around. Gunfire, bombs, blood, loved ones gone in an instant—this is the opening sequence of The Kingdom.

These families were inside what was supposed to be a secured compound in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia when all hell breaks loose. The actual ‘beginning' of the film provides a brief overview, in the form of a timeline, of the U.S. and Saudi Arabia's past, before gunning into the movie's opening sequence.

This film takes you behind the scenes, to what appears to be a realistic scenario that might happen or could have happened. Does that make sense? No, well let me put it this way...you get a real feel for what it's like in Saudi Arabia, and what looks like the back-dooring of government officials—government officials who want to do right by the country no matter what the cost, not looking for political gain or power—and get slammed for it, yelled at, and their jobs threatened. We don't always know what goes on behind the scenes, and this film takes you there.

Ronald Fleury (Foxx) does something powerful, on more than one occasion, that gets himself far in solving the mystery of who bombed the American compound. He asks questions. Fleury asks questions even when it might be in his best interest to stay quiet.

Special Features for this film include:

• Deleted Scenes
• Character by Character: The Apartment Shootout
• Constructing the Freeway Sequence
• Creating The Kingdom
• History of The Kingdom: An Interactive Timeline
• Commentary with Director Peter Berg

From start to finish, this film keeps you intrigued and interested. But be careful, you cannot miss one second of the film. Walk out of the room for a minute, and all is lost, or it'll just take a long time to figure things out. There is a lot of information packed into this film, so hit the pause button before you get up if you want to be able to fully understand this film.

Trying to keep up with the FBI agents sent to Saudi Arabia is a whirlwind of adventure, as is trying to figure out who bombed the compound, and then nailing the perpetrators for it. The film is riveting, compelling, and most of all convincing. It is a definite must see, if not a definite keeper.

This Reviewer's Rating: 4 / 5

Comments

Add New Search RSS

Write comment
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.26

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."