Latest Jamie Foxx flick lacks direction, coherent theme

October 1, 2007 —

When making a film, there needs to be aesthetic purpose. What is this film meant to do? What is its theme, its method, and so forth? More and more it seems, film has lost track of this idea, or often settles for pure entertainment - which only works sometimes. The Kingdom is one of those films that isn't sure what its aesthetic is.

The film focuses on the aftermath of a terrorist attack in a Saudi Arabian housing project populated mostly by Americans. While politicians debate the situation with regards to the issue of territorialism, FBI Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) assembles a small team (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) and blackmails his way to a secret, five-day mission on Saudi soil.

Once there, a somewhat political power struggle ensues between the FBI team and the Saudi police as to exactly how much investigating they are allowed to do.

The film's credits give a brief history of Saudi Arabia and the political struggles of the nation.

This would seem to suggest the film was going to have something to say about that struggle. It did no such thing, however, and I felt most of the film gave a strange commentary as to the incompetence of the Saudi police and military.

The political arguments in the United States, while encompassing the first twenty minutes of the film, seemed to have no place in the plot once the FBI team got to Saudi Arabia. This makes a five minute debate scene between the Attorney General and the director of the FBI all the more pointless in the overall film.

Something else the film soon loses is its incessant amount of labeling. Again before the team gets to Saudi Arabia, text letting us know every location and the primary and secondary character's names appears on the screen. Why was this necessary if half the characters and locations weren't going to be utilized for most of the film?

During the team's investigation, a relationship develops between the head Saudi police officer (Ashraf Barhom) and Foxx's Fleury. The dynamic works, but makes the film less about any struggles in Saudi Arabia and more about how terrorism is bad - and that not only Americans think this way. Some powerful insight.

One of the things that the film does do well is gore. The terrorist attack in the beginning was fairly graphic - even if the shots are fast and sporadic. There was also a somewhat revolting scene during the investigation, and the end action sequences didn't hold a lot back as far as blood and guts are concerned.

It's important that I label the sequences as action sequences, however, because as the movie went on, it lost sight of whatever limited political message it had in mind at the beginning. Near the closing, its message seemed to want to be more of a broad comment on human nature than anything else.

In the end, The Kingdom featured a decent cast, nominal directing and a pronounced feeling of disappointment - not because of what it is, but because of what it might have been.