(detailed information about this entry from Wikipedia)
The Kingdom is a 2007 film directed by Peter Berg and starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Ashraf Barhom, with Kyle Chandler, and Ali Suliman. It was co-produced by Academy Award nominated director Michael Mann.
The film is fictional, but inspired by bombings at the Riyadh compound on May 12, 2003 and the Khobar housing complex on June 26, 1996 in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The story follows a team of FBI agents who are sent to investigate the bombing of a foreign-workers facility. Screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan has summarized the plot as "What would a murder investigation look like on Mars?”[1]
The film was screened at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as its yearly 'Surprise Movie' on 22 August 2007.[2] The film has been rated R by the MPAA for "Intense Sequences of Graphic Brutal Violence and Language". It received ratings of MA15+ in Australia and 15 in the United Kingdom.
Terrorists attack a compound for foreign workers in Riyadh, killing over a hundred people including Special Agent Francis Manner (Kyle Chandler)-- the FBI's lead agent in Saudi Arabia. While the FBI is hamstrung by diplomatic sensitivities and unable to send agents to investigate, Special Agent Fleury (Jamie Foxx) takes matters into his own hands and leads a team to investigate. With agents Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman), and Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper) at his side, he hopes to discover who was responsible for the bombing within a week's time. However, the team find their investigation of the scene stalled by bureaucracy and their presence, as American outsiders, unwelcome. They eventually gain the trust of Saudi Arabian police officer Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) and his colleague Sgt Haytham (Ali Suliman), with whom they work to find the perpetrator. As Ghazi and the agents close on the terrorist responsible for the bombing, their convoy is attacked and Leavitt is abducted. The agents then move in on the terrorist leader's neighborhood. They successfully rescue Leavitt and eliminate the enemy threat in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, Al Ghazi is killed, which affects the team emotionally. Agent Fleury and his team return home.
[edit] Production
Prior to filming, director Peter Berg spent two weeks doing research for the film in Saudi Arabia.[3] Filming commenced July 10, 2006, on the west side of the old Maricopa County Courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona, USA. Additional scenes were being filmed concurrently in Mesa, Arizona; the scenes at the American compound were shot at the Polytechnic campus of Arizona State University.[4] In some of the trailer frames, saguaro cacti are visible in the background. Following filming on August 12, a crew member died when the utility vehicle (Gator 4x2) he was driving was hit by a sport utility vehicle carrying the director on Arizona State Route 202, in Mesa.[5]
On-location filming took place in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates for two weeks in mid-September.[3] Since Universal Pictures does not have an office in the Middle East, the production was facilitated by a local production firm called Filmworks, based in Dubai.[6] Filming also took place at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi.[7][8] The film's production cost a total of $80 million.[9] The Kingdom will be released on DVD December 26, 2007.
[edit] Critical reception
[edit] Western reception
The Kingdom opened to mixed reviews. Based on 17 reviews, the film averaged a 55 on Metacritic.[10] Rotten Tomatoes lists the film with 53% of critics giving the film slightly positive reviews, based on 120 reviews.[11]
John Anderson of Variety awarded the film three stars out of four, saying that The Kingdom was a "realist thriller that mixes crowd-pleasing mayhem with provocative politics".[12] Weekly Standard columnist John Podhoretz called the film "perfectly paced" and "remarkably crisp and satisfying", arguing that it evokes the films The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Dog Day Afternoon, and The New Centurions.[13] New York Times critic A.O. Scott called it "a slick, brutishly effective genre movie". He also stated that "Just as Rambo offered the fantasy of do-over on Vietnam, The Kingdom can be seen as a wishful revisionist scenario for the American response to Islamic fundamentalist terrorism."[14] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three stars out of four, remarking "Fleury goes John Wayne on their ass."[15] Evan Williams of The Australian called it "an excellent thriller" and stated that it "may be the first Hollywood film to confront Saudi involvement in international terrorism."[16]
New York Post critic Lou Lumenick stated that "Hollywood provides the Islamic world another reason to hate America with The Kingdom", calling it "xenophobic" and "pandering".[17] Lisa Swartzman of Entertainment Weekly accused the film of "treating its audience like cash-dispensing machines".[18] Kenneth Turan of The Los Angeles Times called it "a slick excuse for efficient mayhem that's not half as smart as it would like to be". He added that "the film's thematic similarity to those jingoistic World War II-era "Yellow Peril" films makes it hard not to feel your humanity being diminished".[19]
[edit] Middle Eastern reception
Kaveh L Afrasiabi of Asia Times Online called it "a pseudo-realist action movie that succeeds only if we degrade ourselves to adolescent Americans' perception of world affairs" and "non-stop nonsense from beginning to end." He accused the film of "FBI-worship", "Saudi-bashing", and "Islamophobia".[20] Faisal Abbas, media editor of the London-based international Arabic journal Asharq Al Awsat, wrote on the newspaper's English website that "despite some aspects which might be perceived by some as negative, many might be pleasantly surprised after watching this film, bearing in mind that Arabs have for a long time been among Hollywood's favorite villains". Faisal concluded that "In all cases, the film is definitely action-packed, and perhaps Saudis and Arabs may enjoy it more than Americans, as events are depicted as taking place in the Saudi capital…and it is not every day that you watch a Hollywood-style car chase happening on the streets of Riyadh. For Westerners, the movie might be an interesting “insight” to a culture that is very different to their own".[21]
[edit] Box office performance
The film grossed $17.1 million in 2,733 theaters in the United States and Canada on its opening weekend, ranking #2 at the box office.[22] It also grossed £919,537 in the United Kingdom[23], about $1.9 million.[24] As of October 21, 2007, the film has grossed an estimated $44 million in the United States and $10 million at the foreign box office.[25]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/movies/19king.html?n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FPeople%2FF%2FFoxx%2C%20Jamie
- ^ "Edinburgh Film Festival Gets a Surprise Trip to 'The Kingdom'", Cinematical, August 26, 2007.
- ^ a b The Kingdom's Peter Berg
- ^ "ASU Campus makes big screen debut in 'Kingdom'", ASU State Press, 1 October 2007.
- ^ "Man dies on movie set in Mesa", 12 News, August 13, 2006.
- ^ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117954915.html?categoryid=2379&cs=1
- ^ http://www.esquire.com/features/esquire-100/peterberg1007
- ^ http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2007/09/23/feeling_the_heat/
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431197/business
- ^ Kingdom, The (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2007-09-28.
- ^ The Kingdom - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2007-09-29.
- ^ The Kingdom Review - Variety.com. Variety. Retrieved on 2007-09-28.
- ^ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/169toxvu.asp?pg=1
- ^ http://movies.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/movies/28king.html
- ^ http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/10498754/review/16495819/the_kingdom
- ^ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22518429-15803,00.html
- ^ http://www.nypost.com/seven/09282007/entertainment/movies/the_king_dumb.htm
- ^ http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20058666,00.html
- ^ http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-kingdom28sep28,0,6710122.story?coll=cl-mreview
- ^ http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IJ02Ak03.html
- ^ http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=5&id=10489
- ^ The Kingdom (2007) - Weekend Box Office. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2007-10-24.
- ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0431197/business
- ^ As of October 21, 2007 using Yahoo!Finance
- ^ The Kingdom (2007) - International Box Office. Box Office Mojo. Retrieved on 2007-10-21.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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The Kingdom (2007) 
The Kingdom (2007)
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