More about this DVD  •  DVD Info  •  Movie Main Page  •  Message Board

Terrorism… brutal attacks on innocent civilians, targeted for who they are or where they are, are senseless, counterproductive to any cause, and stimulate hatred among the attacked. Retribution is usually harsh, frequently causing collateral damage, fostering more hatred on the other side, provoking additional acts of terrorism. It’s a sick cycle of inhumanity, the terrorism all too often wrapped in misguided religious fervor. Shear, unrelenting, visceral abhorrence seems to be the driving force, an emotion director Peter Berg and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan tap to make The Kingdom a wrenching experience.

The film opens in an American compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Parents and children are enjoying a day off at a softball game. On the roof of a distant high-rise apartment building that has a view of the scene, terrorists watch through binoculars, one forcing his young son to keep his eyes on the game. In a well-planned and executed operation, the compound is infiltrated, gunmen dressed in stolen police uniforms open fire indiscriminately, and bombs full of nails and glass marbles explode, detonated by suicide bombers. Many Americans are killed or maimed, children, women, men… audience reaction will be primal; the filmmakers have provoked the same feelings of hatred that drive the cycle of violence.

In Washington, the FBI reacts. It wants to send a criminal investigation team to Saudi Arabia to help recover and analyze evidence, and to track down the perpetrators. There is much political resistance. The Saudis would prefer to handle the investigation on their own and the State Department concurs. But the Bureau has lost one of its own, one of the first responders. With some behind the scenes manipulation, special agents Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx), Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), and Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman) manage to secure permission for a brief stay in Riyadh.

Fleury is the FBI team leader and head investigator. Sykes is a bomb expert whose specialty is to examine the residual devastation and deduce what happened. Mayes is a pathologist who analyzes the human devastation, seeking clues buried within the victims’ bodies. I’m not quite sure what Leavitt’s specialty is; he seems to be just another investigator, another set of eyes but a person who thinks outside the box. Upon landing, the team finds that it has been assigned a Saudi babysitter, Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), who is tasked with restricting their access and movements. Each night, the agents are to be locked in their sleeping quarters and are never to venture anywhere without escort. American embassy liaison Damon Schmidt (Jeremy Piven), knowing that the agents are attractive targets, fears a further loss of life and the political fallout; he wants them whisked back to the States as soon as possible.

This film is essentially a police procedural, but it’s flavored with the impediments of international politics, the tension of being in a land so foreign as to be impenetrable, and facing a foe that is merciless, wily, and supported and protected by an uncomfortably large segment of the locals. Fleury skillfully appeals to a Crown Prince and secures a bit more latitude in his investigation. Fleury also bonds with Colonel Ghazi; they're both driven by dedication to family and an overwhelming sense of justice. And as the two men become more tangible allies, Fleury is able to penetrate deeper into finding the solution to this heinous crime.

Tensions are heightened as the film crosscuts between the agents and terrorists preparing a very powerful car bomb configured to decimate, incinerate, and rip victims apart. The third act is virtually nonstop action, from an attack with that car bomb, to the capturing of one of the FBI agents, to a sequence reminiscent of the vile execution of Daniel Pearl, to a vicious firefight in a hostile neighborhood.

Jamie Foxx continues his arc as an effective actor, portraying his character’s strength, commitment, and empathetic human side. Ashraf Barhom, an Israeli of Arabic descent, as the Saudi colonel is very impressive. He projects a reluctance to obey his superiors’ orders to limit the American presence; he’s wary of the motives of his superiors and yet retains pride in his country. Chris Cooper seems to delight in playing the fish out of water, trying to convey to sloppy Saudi investigators the need to avoid contaminating the evidence. Jennifer Garner is the token pretty agent put in harm’s way, but comports herself well. I’ve not seen Jason Bateman in a role anywhere near this one before; his character tends to be a bit of a smartass, but the actor comes through convincingly when his character is put in peril.

Director Peter Berg gives himself a little cameo early in the film during a meeting at the FBI building in Washington. He then risks giving the audience motion sickness for the next two hours. In what is an attempt to create tension, immediacy, and a documentary style that evokes truth and authenticity, his cameras are always moving on Steadicam rigs. He’ll shoot with up to three cameras running simultaneously so that going back for coverage might not be necessary. The takes are then longer and the actors are given the generous opportunity to play off one another more continuously. This may help the performances, but the shaking, motion, and unsteadiness, elevated during scenes of high action, are vertiginous.

The film makes its point in the most unsubtle manner possible. After evoking audience hatred for those who have such little respect for life, we learn that both a terrorist leader and Fleury express precisely the same emotional response to the conflict and deaths. There may be nothing in common between these enemies, but hate transcends cultural and religious boundaries.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 is presented in a fine looking high definition transfer compressed with the VC-1 video CODEC. Universal has kicked up the bit rate a tad for this transfer and its helps. Small object detail and finely grained textures are a little better than on most of the studio’s VC-1 transfers. This makes the impact of the post-attack carnage all the more wrenching. The devastation seen in long shots and in the background is rich in detail that emphasizes the destructive power of the bomb. On DVD, most of that small detail would be lost, lessening the visceral impact. Color accuracy is excellent based on natural flesh tones, the greenery in the American compound, the fiery yellows and oranges of explosions, and the copious quantities of crimson blood. The video dynamic range is excellent. Despite the hot sun in several shooting locations, I didn’t see any white bloom, and the nighttime scenes have admirable shadow detail. I was also pleased to see that Universal was not tempted to impose halos through the use of artificial enhancement. Of course, much of this assessment must be tempered with the dynamic camera techniques that tend to make a video critique difficult.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The lossless TrueHD 5.1 is an excellent track that emphasizes mayhem and destruction with envelopment and a strong bottom end. Weapons fire and explosions are tactile as well as audible. The sounds of a large caliber machine gun and RPGs pounded against my chest, and the several explosions are downright startling. Danny Elfman’s effective score is conveyed across a broad soundstage, widened with leaks into the surrounds, and with persuasive fidelity. The surrounds are used to great effect, particularly during firefights, startling with sounds that immerse the viewer in the action. The dialog is distortion-free throughout, but is sometimes overwhelmed by sound effects and music. In quieter, more intimate moment, the spoken word has a convincing timbre.

The optional subtitles are in English SDH, English, and French.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

U-Control gives you access to four types of information. In a picture-in-picture window are the behind-the-scenes features; they are the most interesting. You see lots of sequences of director Peter Berg working with his performers. Mission Dossier Surveillance repeats in a superimposed window the information found in the stand-alone version described below. The Mission Dossier is a text based feature requiring user interaction to reveal background information and factoids. Character by Character: The Apartment Shootout is a feature that allows you to follow a character of your choice during that sequence thanks to Berg’s use of simultaneous cameras. It requires user interaction to select the character.

Deleted Scenes (11:06, 2.35:1, HD) extend the sequences that lead up to the trip to Saudi Arabia and one sequence extends the firefight within the Riyadh apartment building.

Constructing the Freeway Sequence featurette (18:16, 2.35:1, SD) begins with a description of the sequence, supported by animatics. We see how the car gags, flipping, rolling, and exploding, were planned. Remote control cars figure prominently. They rehearse, they plan, they shoot. Then the production films the hero car on a very clever rig to convey reactions.

The Creating The Kingdom documentary (35:35 aggregate, 1.78:1, SD) is a reasonably comprehensive look at the making of the film. You’ll see segments that consider concept, casting, bomb making and bomb training, weapons and combat training, set design, pyrotechnics, action sequences, location shooting in Abu Dhabi, three-camera hand- held techniques, directorial style, the efforts of foreign actors, and the concept of similarities between peoples of different cultures. Narration-free, these are interesting without devolving into EPK material

History of the Kingdom: An Interactive Timeline allows you to select from among different events in Saudi Arabia history that occurred between 1932 and 2003. Select an event and you’ll see either text or text accompanied by a video vignette. Nicely done and educational.

The Mission Dossier: Surveillance (6:35) is organized into six sections. Each represents some form of violence depicted onscreen. A diagrammatic window is superimposed in front of an excerpt from the film to educate through CGI and text about the location and the sequence.

There is an audio commentary by director Peter Berg that is a little dry; expect quite a few silent gaps. He’s somewhat laid back and subdued, unexpected considering his frenetic directorial style and the energy imparted to the film with his camera techniques. I think you’ll find the PiP video presentations more revealing and more interesting.

The 110-minute film is organized into twenty chapters.

Final Thoughts

This is a dramatic blend of action-adventure and police procedural that makes a very telling point concerning mutual hatred and mistrust trapped in a cycle of lethal violence. There are no solutions here, only the paradox of a bad situation getting worse with no end in sight. With fine performances and a compelling story, a great presentation, and some valuable supplements, this disc is recommended.