DVD REVIEW: "The Kingdom"

Peter Berg's "The Kingdom" starts off with a bang--literally--has an implausible but rip-snorting finale and a long, sloggy middle section during which a lot of viewers might lose interest completely.

I'm guessing the film is trying to be a "Syriana" light, but you should just forget about the politics and view this as a thriller that almost thrills.

The movie begins on what is supposed to be a walled-in western compound in Riyadh, the capital of The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The compound is walled in because of the ill-feelings created by the clash of western and Muslim cultures. Two machine-gun firing terrorists and a suicide bomber strikes a picnic/softball game inside the compound and just when you think the worst is over, it isn't.

That's the setup and a well-done setup it is. But then the film gets messy. Back in Washington, the FBI wants to send in a team to investigate the blast. Government officials, led by a head-in-the-sand attorney general (Danny Huston), nix the idea, saying the Saudi police have jurisdiction and besides, western "boots" on Saudi soil would only further inflame an already combustible situation. In a series of scenes that defy all logic, FBI agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx, looking more like Ray Charles than an crack FBI agent) blackmails a Saudi official in Washington to give him five days for a team to investigate the explosions. The team consists of Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper, severely hampered by a screenplay that wastes his abilities), Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman, whose only reason for being on this team seems to be so that he can be a victim near the film's end) and, in a completely stupid move considering how Muslims regard women, Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner in a performance that should not be featured high in her resume).

The movie's overly long second act has the four of them battling with Saudi police to even have the right to search for and collect evidence and, when that war of wills has been won, an interlude in which the highlight is Sykes wading around in a water-filled bomb crater and the budding budy-buddy relationship between Fleury and Saudi police investigator Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom). There's a scene in which four Saudi youths are set up as the perpetrators of the attack on the compound and are killed in a brief gun battle. Told their work here is through, the four FBI agents head for the airport.

Then, in a scene that makes absolutely no sense, except for the fact that it was the easiest way for the screenwriters to get to that slam bang finale, the agents are attacked by the real terrorist cell on their way to the airport. This sets up the last gun battle in which, against all odds, the four of them hold off an attack by a small army of terrorists, even though the four were supposed to have surrendered their weapons when they first arrived in Riyadh, and finally a suspenseful scene inside an apartment .

I've got to give Berg, cameraman Mauro Fiore and art director A. Todd Holland credit for the sense of location they bring to the movie. I really had the feeling of being in Saudi Arabia even though all those scenes were filmed in Arizona. What I can't give Berg credit for, however, is his camera placements during battle scenes. Instead of the occasional long shot that would give us some perspective, Berg tries to imitate the sense of claustrophobia Paul Greengrass created in "The Bourne Ultimatum." The reason Greengrass' techniques worked in that movie, however, was because the fights were one-on-one, not army-on-army as is the case in "The Kingdom."

Grade: C+