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For four bucks it seems like a hell of a deal to me. Its a family movie so its bound to make some kind of money. And if it's good enough it'll make a buttload. Its got all the elements for a money maker. Football action in the right season for it. The rock. Nuff said. and typical family humor. Dont forget the dog in the tu tu.

Back on the topic of The Kingdom, did anyone go to one of those free screenings this week that Flixster was advertising?

Saturday night, I caught a sneak preview tonight of a film I've been eagerly anticipating since this time last year... Peter Berg's The Kingdom was one of my Top Three Must-Sees of the First Half of 2007 (along with Breach and 300) before it, um, got pushed back to the Second Half of 2007.

It's difficult to overstate how excited I was to see this film. I've been a fan of Berg's since Very Bad Things, really a mediocre film overall but one packing some truly shocking, even monstrous, "comedic" touches... a title that took some incredible risks (and, I'm convinced, put the final nail in the coffin of Christian Slater's career as a film lead)... There have been, I suppose, more jaw-dropping, notorious, and all-around "cooler" genre films, but I'm honestly not sure there's been a braver "dark comedy" -- EVER -- than Very Bad Things, except perhaps for Your Friends & Neighbors. However, I digress...

Point is, Berg's been a comer for a long, long time now, honing his writing and producing chops on top-flight television fare like Chicago Hope and the brilliant, tragically truncated Wonderland, as well as building up his street cred as an action film helmer (The Rundown) before breaking into the big time with the film adaptation of Friday Night Lights and, most triumphantly, its small-screen namesake. FNL (and, I should also mention, Heroes) is perhaps the epitome of all that's right with post-Broadcast Era television, and may well be (again, with Heroes) the last, great scripted hourlong drama the original Big Three nets ever produce... The future belongs, certainly, to Showtime, FX and (less and less each season) HBO, but in a melancholy, apathetic sea of Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer productions and their inevitable clones, Friday Night is that rarest of gems. Not for nothing do I call Peter Berg "the next David Chase," or "Ron Moore."

(Full disclosure, however: I live in Texas; I'm a fairly insane football fan, even of high school ball -- our hometown 5A team is currently ranked 4th statewide -- and I know several of FNL's "players" on a personal level. I'm close to the production, so I'm hardly objective.)

But Peter Berg, The Kingdom's director, only lays claim to a fraction of the dozens of very, very good things [heh] that The Kingdom has going for it. The writer, Matthew Michael Carnahan, is also responsible for the forthcoming Lions for Lambs, which along with Grace is Gone heralds, perhaps, a real maturation of Hollywood's perspective on our most recent (and continuing) war. (Aside: It's pretty much conventional wisdom, nowadays, that history keeps speeding up, and that cultural change / "evolution" that once took centuries now occurs in about a half-hour. But I'm still fairly astonished at how quickly, how completely, American filmmakers' perspectives on the Iraq War have reached this present, heartbreaking, contemplative point. A film like In the Valley of Elah, for example -- were it to have been a product of the Viet Nam era -- could likely not have been made until the late 1980s, around the time that Platoon or Casualties of War or Gardens of Stone were released. My point is, we sure do grow up fast in this day and age. The bloom comes off the rose, if you'll pardon the expression, far quicker in the 21st Century than ever it did in the now-quaint 20th.)

I've thought Jamie Foxx was a star ever since he asked Uma Thurman to stick her pinky up a turtle's butt in The Truth About Cats & Dogs; The Players Club and Any Given Sunday (I mean, the guy held his own, onscreen, against Pacino. Pacino, for Heaven's sake!) merely confirmed my suspicions, which have been borne out, I think, in Collateral, Jarhead and Dreamgirls (not to mention, of course, Ray). Foxx is (and I'm sure I'm not the first to put it this way) his generation's Denzel Washington, at least so far... and let's hope Jamie manages to avoid the mid-career stagnation Denzel's been plagued by recently (the Glory star really hasn't had a decent role since 2001's revelatory Training Day). Like the rest of the world, I fell in love with Jennifer Garner from the pilot episode of Alias on, and I've stuck with her Sally Field-meets-Linda Hamilton, girl-next-door-cum-tomboy spunkiness through a fairly disastrous early film résumé (Daredevil; Catch and Release; and, God help me, Elektra... And, while we're on the subject, CAN SOMEBODY IN HOLLYWOOD PLEASE JUST GET IT THROUGH THEIR SKULLS THAT CHICK SUPERHERO MOVIES FRIGGIN' BLOW ?!?!? I mean, come on: Elektra; Catwoman; not to mention, holy total steaming piles of dog$h!t, Batman, My Super Ex-Girlfriend. And don't even get me started on Halle Berry's "portrayal" of Storm in the two X-Men films, plus that abortion of a trilogy-capper; the fact that 20th Century Fox passed on Angela Bassett as "too old," at 41 no less, to play Ororo Munroe is one of several reasons I have very nearly come to loathe that studio of late, The Day After Tomorrow being another big one. However, I digress. Point is, I swear to God, if I ever see Kate Beckinsdale, or Jessica Alba, or Eva Mendes, in Wonder Woman, I will absolutely track Joel Silver down and use strong language on him, or throw myself under the wheels of his BMW to degrade its paint job, or do a deuce on his shoes, or something. Though I actually have to wonder why anyone would want Eva Mendes in ANY film... However, perhaps, again, I digress just a smidge).

And Chris Cooper elevates every single film he's in, not dominating the frame or stealing scenes, but delivering the goods with such quiet, intense, self-assured gravitas that he makes everyone he shares the screen with that much more credible. What a master craftsman; he's his generation's Paul Newman, folks, no matter that he's got a map of the world on his face. Lonesome Dove; City of Hope; A Time to Kill; October Sky; American Beauty; Seabiscuit; Capote; Syriana; Breach (which ought to net him another Oscar nom). My God, Lone Star. He even managed to bring dignity to HBO's exploitative, R-rated AfterSchool Special, Breast Men, which is a bit like pouring Dom Perignon in a Dixie cup, or, actually, down the toilet.

So, anyway: Here's the thing about The Kingdom. You've seen it all before, and yet, you haven't. It's a police procedural; it's a war film. It's a fictionalized version of certain real-life events, and yet, you walk out of the theater with the discomfiting sense that you're just been brought face-to-face with the very definition of "brutal truth." It's a bold, in-your-face commentary on the nature of this, most exasperatingly undefinable "long war"; it resolutely fails to come down, politically, on one side or the other. It's jarringly intimate; it's morbidly clinical. The Kingdom, seen as a whole, shatters many commonly shared, very specifically, American perspectives, particularly about our rivals in the Middle East, and it does it without being preachy or overbearing. It is, in a word, astonishing. And it has the most breathtaking, gut-wrenching, blood-chilling final few moments I've seen in a film since the brilliant, out-of-nowhere last scene of Roger Donaldson's mesmerizing No Way Out.

There are elements of this movie that are so familiar. Syriana; Patriot Games; The Siege; Black Hawk Down. A fan of modern films could be forgiven for spending the entire 110-minute runtime cataloguing all its influences and predecessors. Take my advice, don't, at least not on a first viewing.

The film is bookended in an exceedingly interesting fashion: The Kingdom opens -- perhaps necessarily, given its undeniably American perspective and audience -- with, of all things, a history lesson, briefly summarizing the entire story of U.S. involvement with the Kingdom of Saud (Saudi Arabia), and therefore why we should give a damn. Yet, the film's opening montage will not -- cannot -- become genuinely relevant until the very end of the film; all the myriad dates and facts are important only in hindsight. The Kingdom's first few minutes are, to borrow a specific image from the film, a shorthand version of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Kingdom; its final few moments illustrate just how applicable these dusty intangibles really are to our current struggle, and how very much they are impacting our lives now, and will for the foreseeable future.

You've probably gleaned this much from the trailers, which have been circulating at least since last winter: A truly barbaric terrorist attack on a Western housing compound in Saudi Arabia draws an elite FBI investigative team into the region, where, somewhat inevitably, they become even more appealing targets to those trying to bring about an end to American involvement in the Kingdom. The team butts heads almost instantly with less-than-completely-helpful local law enforcement and military personnel, a strained-to-the-breaking-point relationship that is, itself, a paradigm of the far deeper chasms forcing these two nearly diametrically opposed cultures into constant conflict with one another. What on earth would bring such massively distant worlds into a hugely dysfunctional relationship with each other? The oil, of course, lubricant of both the industrialized world's economy and the Kingdom's own internal political machine. Yet, though it may seem that we come from different planets, there is common ground to be had; justice, at least, and love of family survive even a century-long immersion in this blackest of universal solvents. People with nothing in common, both horrified by the scale of the conflict, come together in the name of something greater than themselves. Trust, and interdependence, result, and the hope of at least a temporary, personal solution to one of history's most enduring cultural crucibles.

And yet -- you walk away from the film with the inescapable realization that the terrible momentum, the awful legacy of insult, conflict, retribution, revenge, cannot be solved so easily. As in any war, individuals may see reason, but nations -- far less, civilizations -- are far, far harder to mollify. The last few frames of The Kingdom may be the most haunting of any film I've ever seen.

This is a film that, perhaps, works on two totally unrelated levels: It is, to be sure, an enormously capable, relatively straightforward action/suspense film, but it's also a transcendent study of our times, much like Traffic was, or, more obviously, recent Best Picture Crash. It may appeal equally to patriots and pacifists, to Americans and Europeans, to Red States and Blue States. On the other hand, it might just piss off everybody. I just can't tell.

There are no truly outstanding performances; it's a real ensemble film in that sense, no one steals the show. Everyone, including relative bit players like Jeremy Piven, Richard Jenkins and FNL's Kyle Chandler and Minka Kelly, is exactly what their roles require them to be, no more, no less... In other words, the casting is perfect. (And there ought to be an Academy Award for Best Casting, in my opinion.) The set pieces are flawless; the cinematography is outstanding; the direction is phenomenal. The action sequences are some of the best I've ever seen, right up there with Full Metal Jacket, the Bourne films, The Thin Red Line, Ronin and Casino Royale. The Kingdom should go up for several technical awards, including Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Effects and, perhaps, Best Director. (And there still ought to be a category recognizing outstanding casting.)

[Sigh] It's almost impossible to do this film justice, so I'll just say it straight out: Go see The Kingdom, and decide for yourself. I can give no higher praise to a film than to say: It made me think, and it stayed with me. It's been three days, and I haven't been able to put The Kingdom out of my mind yet... and I very much doubt I will, for quite a long time to come.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

Yeah, I saw it.

I liked the movie but, I'll be honest, the more I think about it, the more aggravating it actually was. I'm not sure what to think of the movie's politics but at times it reduces to a very simple tenet: the world is a better place if we just kill 'em all. That comes from both sides of what is presented as a maybe regretted symbiotic alliance. I'm sure Metallica would be proud. I'm being simplistic so I'll just stop. This is a movie that wants to be called 'Rambo 5: Syriana.' I guess that's the best way I can describe it. 'The Kingdom' wants to say profound things about the Western and Middle Eastern political and cultural relationship but when the script starts to get unsure of itself and the motivations of the conflicting organizations, it resorts to lightening things up with a few explosions. It just kind of hopes you won't notice that there aren't any substantive answers.

I'm just going to reply to my friend A-Roode real fast (yes, really!): I see what you mean, but I beg to differ. I think that the non-bookend part of the film, the "white meat," if you will, IS a very obviously American perspective, told very conventionally and in that heightened, stylized manner that is so common to American action films, right down to the rah-rah, rally-'round-the-flag elements you mentioned; but, again, I think those final few moments flip the whole thing on its ear. [Swipe only if you've seen the film:] By transposing the American "victory," with its predictable emotionalism, pride and confidence, with the EXACT SAME SENTIMENT on the OTHER side, I think The Kingdom illustrates just how similiar BOTH sides are, in terms of their capriciousness, persistence, bloodlust and towering arrogance; we are fighting an enemy so very like ourselves, and the sense of purpose, of "mission accomplished" the team felt upon its return to the U.S., is EXACTLY THE SAME as the terrorists' own determination, zeal and terrible, terrible fury. "We have met the Enemy, and he is us." We look at our opponents and see monsters. The truth is, on some level at least, we're looking in a mirror.

At least, that's what I got out of it.

I remain, as always...

Nico.

Thanks for the review Nico and A_Roode, but I gotta ask, are there any spaceship battles?

Oops, double post.

Sigh. tuan and his space battles...

(Note: for full effect, repeat the above line in the same inflection of voice as Chief Wiggum in that ep where Homer became a food critic. "(Sigh) Lou and his frittatas..."

Mmm... frittatas... (*smack*)

Great review, Nico, I can't wait to see this film.

Nico, my man, your review made me want to see The Kingdom
Roode, my man, your review made me not!

I'm eager to swipe Nico's whitened post, but I must resist.

Guess I'll leave it to the reviews.

Nico, what films do you compare The Kingdom to (yes, I'm aware of the fact that I'm reducing your review to "if you like BLAH, you'll love YADA", something Amazon does and hardly ever gets right, but hey, I've no attention span. Now if you just tell me who you are, we can all move on)

Don't let me talk you out of it number_six -- I DID actually enjoy the movie and have in fact been recommending it to friends. If nothing else, there is a kick a$$ gun fight that is intense to say the least. 'The Kingdom' wins its opening weekend, scores 8-10 Top 5 and will have iMDb between 6.8-7.4 Couldn't tell you what the box office finishes at but I'd be suprised if it is less than $80 million. It isn't a 'dumb' movie and it isn't pure popcorn either. The final half hour is great stuff (the ending lines that our friendly neighborhood rat references will either chill you as they resonate or annoy you with puerile cynicism). I just don't think anyone should be hoping to sharpen their understanding of the Middle East with 'The Kingdom' as their textbook.

And anyway, no movie studio is stupid enough to sneak peek a movie two weeks ahead of time if the thing is a stinker. They've got the goods. I'm jaded about the politics but stoked about the action.

Sheesh! Thanks for the review Mr. Nicodemus. I was going to write it off from the TV spots because it seemed like the modern day Green Berets. Apparently, it seems as I was wrong about that! I'll definitely give it a look see.

All: Thanks, again, and you're welcome! I only wish I hadn't written the second half of my Kingdom review at 1:00 a.m. And, er, that I had an editor. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!)

Number Six: First off, let me say that A_Roode has a point, I've been thinking about it quite a bit today. Although I would certainly not compare The Kingdom to the sort of simplistic, parochial, overbearing Michael Bay / Chevy Truck commercial pro-Americanism of, say, Armageddon, or Navy Seals, or even (for those reading between the lines) Starship Troopers, the film is most definitely presented from the American perspective, and that point of view only really shifts in the closing "bookend" I mentioned. So, this is not what you might honestly call an "objective" film... but, truthfully, war films rarely are (and crime films, which The Kingdom also is, even less); even those that aspire to equanimity almost always have a specific moral or ideological axe to grind. In that sense I would compare The Kingdom to, for instance, United 93, which depicted with unflinching, brutal honesty the loathsomeness of events without exactly condemning either "side" -- the Muslim terrorists, or their (mainly) American victims.

The film I think The Kingdom, narratively speaking, most closely resembles is Ed Zwick's courageous, prescient The Siege; though, from a technical standpoint, the other films I mentioned (Patriot Games, Syriana and, perhaps most accurately, Black Hawk Down) have clearly had their influence, too. But I think The Siege is by far the most exact comparison.

And I also agree with A_Roode on another point: DO NOT consider The Kingdom to be a complete, infallible, exacting Cliffs Notes to our involvement in Saudi Arabia. (Perhaps I oversold the film in this regard.) I would consider it, however, a good place to begin one's education about the history of the Kingdom, and why it matters. Moreover, if you want to know what the U.S. is up against in its "war on terror," or "war of terror" (with acknowledgements to Borat), or "long war," or whatever you might want to term it, I think this film's concluding minutes deliver a pretty accurate answer.

(Full disclosure, again: Many of you know I served in the U.S. Navy; fewer, perhaps, are aware that I served in the Persian Gulf War. I've been to that part of the world, during a not entirely dissimilar time, and I found the mannerisms, the attitude, the hard-to-articulate details of the clash of cultures between West and Near East depicted in The Kingdom to be 100% accurate. If you want to know what it can be like "over there," you're far better off watching The Kingdom, in my opinion, than, say, Jarhead... Berg & co. did their homework.)

Btw, A_Roode, I'd LOVE to discuss your reaction to those closing few minutes in greater detail; perhaps you wouldn't mind inaugurating a thread marked, "SPOILERS!"...? Just to make sure no one has their own viewing experience soured, or influenced, unnecessarily...

Good stuff.

Jack0: ...We-ellllll... again, refer to my comments to A_Roode above, there. I would characterize / interpret The Kingdom's spectacular firefights as being more of a clinical dissection of urban combat conditions, than Tony Scott-esque machismo; however, there's at least ONE scene / action that's totally over-the-top, and which did (in my theater, anyway) provoke a spontaneous eruption of "Yeah, baby, yeah!"s. So, while I think Green Berets is something of a stretch, I would put its combat scenes up there, in terms of their furious insanity, with, say, The Patriot's. Different war, similiar frenzies.

One thing I'd like to point out about combat is this: In the moment of actual action, you'd be awfully hard-pressed to find a soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine (or, for that matter, Coastie) who is thinking of ideology, or politics, or even honor, while the air around them is being pierced with reports and the screams of the maimed and dying. When you're in a foxhole, it's not about policy, it's about survival -- yours, and the person next to you's. That's it. Hollywood tends to turn the soldiers involved in combat actions into either simplistic, recruiting-poster cardboard cut-outs, or one-dimensional, slavering fanatics; it tends to view combat actions as either glorious revelations about the so-called "human spirit," or terrible indictments of human criminality. It's all wrong. There are a million reasons why soldiers -- on either side, in ANY war -- sign up, from the need to acquire maturity to the desire to earn respect; from love of country, to hate of their hometown; from a desire to serve, to a desire to smash; from decent paychecks to, if you'll pardon the crude expression, decent p_______. But, under fire, it's all about living to draw another breath, to see another sunrise, to kiss your spouse and children; and to make sure your buddy gets to do the same. Rhetoric and reason both fly out the window the instant the shit hits the fan; at that point, all that matters is getting through, getting out, and getting home. Neither George W. Bush nor Saddam Hussein mattered one bit to soldiers under fire; bullets chew up demagoguery far more effectively, even, than flesh. (Precious little in life promotes focus and clarity faster than a muzzle flash and an echoing report, folks.) No one who's been through combat would ever call themselves a "hero," or a "monster"; all they'll ever be, all they ever wanted to be, are... survivors. Watch Band of Brothers, or, if you really feel the need to invest Hell with some kind of meaning or rationality, The Thin Red Line. Everything else is a cartoon, to one extent or another, and The Kingdom is no exception, though it's far, far, far from the most ridiculous imitation / simplification of war I've seen.

However... I digress.

tuan: [Snort] You're too much, dude. "[A]re there any spaceship battles?" made me laugh out loud... Even before I envisioned hearing it in a Chief Wiggum voice. (Funniest Simpsons quote, ever: "I think I bent my Wookie!" --Ralph Wiggum.) [Sigh] Yes, tuan, yes, there are.

Have I mentioned yet, how very, very good it is to be "back"?

I remain, as always...

Nico.

ETA: P.S. There's another thing, on further reflection, I need to agree with A_Roode about: The Kingdom doesn't offer any answers. Far from it, it presents, ultimately, a snapshot of how one side deals with this cultural conflict... [swipe only if you want to be spoiled] ...and, at the very end, how the other side deals with same... which turns out to be, identically.

I really don't think its gonna be that great. Personally I would rather see the game plan. Mainly because war movies are definately not my cup of tea. or coffee. or anything else for that matter. I find them to be somewhat boring and sorely overrated. They're all the same to me no matter how different everyone else says they are. If my theater gets it. I'll watch it. If not. I think I can wait.

"I really don't think [The Kingdom is] gonna be that great. Personally I would rather see [T]he [G]ame [P]lan."

Dude. You know, cRAzY, I love your stuff, and I am respectful of your opinion / taste / perspective / preferences, I really am. I'm not trying to be a dick or anything -- after all, I'll defend Starship Troopers to the death (yours, of course, not mine, are you kiddin' me? It's just a stupid friggin' movie about space bugs!). But, I have to tell you, man, in all sincerity... I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

No, seriously, I hope you enjoy The Game Plan, or Resident Evil: Extinction, or Eastern Promises, or whatever you might see this weekend, and I'll quit breaking your balls. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to pound down a quart or so of Scope. [Grin]

(I mean, it can't be worse than Ghost Rider. Right?)

(Right?)

(...right...?)

I remain, as always...

Nico. (...right?!?!?)

As you can tell by my post profile, I don't post a whole lot on the public boards. HOwever, when I saw a thread about this subject I had to jump in.

I have been looking forward to this film ever since I heard it got a standing ovation at the focus group sneak peeks back in July (I think it was July). I am just happy that Hollywood realizes that with a little bit of effort they can still make great Action/Suspense movies with a brain.

It is films like these that make us healthier as a nation. To have a little food for thought with your popcorn has always been a mantra at the Arthouse and European cinema. I am happy to see it is finally starting to make some strides in this country b/c honestly you get your message to much bigger audience when you make a genre film with some intelectual elements rather than the other way around.

I am extremely excited to see The Kingdom. I hope it is great and can stand up and shout its discussion from the rooftops, even if it is, "I am mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore." Here's hoping that this film transcends its genre and gets everyone talking about the geo-political issues that are only passed around inside the beltway and the academic elite. I lift my glass to the hope that is The Kingdom and the type of change it can cause for all mankind. hahaha.

I got you going huh. I just hope the movie is solid, everyone comes out to see it and it becomes that coffee table book for all of America. As always I remain... jk Nico I won't take your line...

Peace

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