By Eric Kohn

The Kingdom
Directed by Peter Berg


You could argue that the absence of struggle affects the art of documentary filmmaking, but there’s no question that, in recent years, it has become a more commercially viable product than ever before. So it seems natural for its form to encroach on other areas of mainstream cinema. Ironically enough, since they rely on the suspension of disbelief, action movies have grown steadily influenced by the tools of nonfiction storytelling. Consider the shaky cam design of The Bourne Ultimatum—and its killer box office receipts, which stand in stark comparison to the dismal audience turnout for the cartoon-styled action of Shoot ’Em Up. Now we get The Kingdom, a movie that’s awkwardly divided between accurately depicting global affairs and, uh, shooting them up.

Directed by Peter Berg (“Friday Night Lights”) like a cross between Syriana and Three Kings, this appropriation of oil politics lacks the complexity of the former and pointed wit of the latter (and, unlike both of those examples, it lacks George Clooney). Jamie Foxx plays a grim FBI agent sent with a team of fellow “specialists” (although it’s not clear what’s so special about them) to Saudi Arabia as American representatives in the investigation of a double suicide bombing that kills some of their operatives. Foxx’s character is your average laid-back law enforcer with the standard sympathetic backstory (wife and kid at home, etc.), while his fellow militant investigators are so empty and clueless that you almost wish the A-Team would drop by just to ramp up the energy. Even as stereotypes, these characters feel bland: a meek, feminine investigator (Jennifer Garner), an older, sardonic investigator (Chris Cooper) and a comic relief investigator (Jason Bateman) whom nobody finds funny.

Actually, after a slowly paced account of the group’s probing into the bombing site and their navigation of bureaucratic tensions with the Saudi Arabian government, the movie shifts gears and virtually becomes “The A-Team.” (Needless to say, Bateman is no Mr. T, but Cooper would make a great Hannibal in a revival series.) The story suddenly turns to action that, save for a singularly frightening car crash, barely manages to thrill. Then it veers into an extended shootout sequence with “bad-guy Arabs” lurking in the shadows.

Out of context, the latter half of the movie would look like a propaganda film for the war on terror. In context, however, it adds nothing to the ideas about jumbled international cooperation introduced in the first act. The explosive set pieces eventually become self-contradictory: Viewers are asked to root for the survival of a kidnapped American, while the only sympathetic Saudi character abruptly dies for simple shock value.

Wielding such unmotivated chaos, the plot demolishes its attempts at realism in a mess of yelling and gunfire. Compare this to the opening credit sequence, an enticing mini-documentary about the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States after 9/11, which sets up the initial drama. The storytelling begins with a factual hook, and gradually becomes disjointed, reducing its take on contemporary politics to Valley Girl simplicity: “Like, this bomb went off in the Middle East and this guy killed himself, and then some American dudes went there to check it out, and, like, people shot at them! I was all, like, no way!”

Adding insult to injury, the final scene sums up the Big Message for modern times, and the lesson is that everybody wants to kill each other. Like, duh.