Guns and Scrabble
posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 in Movie Reviews
Director Peter Berg has created something really strange with The Kingdom: a slice-of-life thriller. Applying the same techniques he uses to portray life in a small Texas town in Friday Night Lights to an FBI investigation of a terrorist attack, Berg provides an interesting perspective to the war on terror. An American housing compound in Saudi Arabia is bombed by terrorists. A group of FBI agents head to Saudi Arabia to investigate the crime, but is blocked every step of the way by bureaucracy and political agendas. With the help of a sympathetic Saudi police Colonel, the FBI agents navigate their way though Saudi politics and attempt to find the terrorists before time runs out.
It’s compelling stuff, to be sure. They relationship of America with the Saudi royal family and the effects it has on the Middle East could be the subject of a hundred movies, and breaking down a terrorist attack is almost always interesting. But this movie isn’t really about politics, nor is it really about the investigation. It never allows itself to get much deeper into the issues, staying comfortably at the surface of it all. It just isn’t about that.
It’s about people. The film takes extra care to humanize these FBI agents. They aren’t full-blown action stars, though they can fight. They aren’t the almost clairvoyant evidence-seekers of CSI, though they’re certainly good at their job. Mostly, they’re just people who joke around and shoot free throws and play scrabble and talk about old TV shows. We get a lot of that in this film, and while these scenes don’t necessarily move the plot forward, they go a long way in helping us get to know these characters. And in the long run, that’s what gives us the drama.
The shaky-camera, handheld documentary style has really come in vogue lately, but there are few people who do it as well as Peter Berg. This film is absolutely gorgeous. Every shot really brings the viewer into the scene. The style of shooting makes every conversation seem more intimate, and every action scene more powerful. It makes it all feel real, and that just makes the entire movie-watching experience so much better.
The cast does a great job at conveying the naturalistic feel of the movie. There are no blow-out performances in this film; everybody seems content with being as normal as possible. It almost doesn’t feel like acting, and that can be a really good thing. The connection with their characters is just that much stronger.
In the end, the film doesn’t really say anything new about the situation in Saudi Arabia, nor does it get to the meat of the issues. But shallow as it is in that regard, this film triumphs in telling a very natural, human story in something that’s usually reduced to politics and ideologies. That makes for pretty good cinema.
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