ORIGINALLY set for US release in April, The Kingdom was delayed when it became the subject of early Oscars buzz. It eventually opened there last Friday, now that the season dominated by Academy Awards contenders is under way. Dream on, because it's hard to imagine any prospects of prizes for this film other than, perhaps, in a few technical categories.
The kingdom of the title is Saudi Arabia. The movie appears to signal ambitions as a serious political thriller by copiously captioning its globetrotting locations and even its fictional characters - and by opening on a potted history of US-Saudi relations over the past 75 years. That culminates in drawing an obvious equation between Saudi Arabia as the world's major oil producer and the US as the biggest oil consumer.
Cutting to live action, the movie then depicts what appears to be a typically American weekend afternoon of parents and children enjoying a barbecue and playing softball in the sunshine. The setting is actually a housing compound in Riyadh for US oil company workers and their families.
The tranquillity is shattered abruptly when they come under attack from indiscriminate gunfire and a suicide bombing, wreaking a heavy human toll.
Back in Washington, a caring dad (Jamie Foxx) is cooing over his young son when he gets the news from the Middle East. He is FBI special agent Ronald Fluery, who then leads an undercover team (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman) into Riyadh in search of the mastermind behind the killings.
It is surprising that the agents on this mission don't speak a word of the local lingo, even though most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian. That doesn't deter Cooper's character from getting impatient with a Riyadh officer and patronisingly snarling, "Do you understand evidence? Do you know what clues are for?" And Garner's character shows scant regard for the country's religious traditions.
In a feeble attempt at some balance, the screenplay sketches a Saudi counterpart - a colonel played by Ashraf Barhom - with whom Fleury can empathise as both an action and a family man. Beyond that, the traffic between them is one way, as the colonel name-checks Michael Jordan, the Incredible Hulk and the Six Million Dollar Man.
Although actor-turned- director Peter Berg orchestrates some flashily effective conflict sequences, The Kingdom prompts the inescapable assumption that it was designed primarily as an action movie that crudely exploits the Middle East as an exotic backdrop - and cynically milks the paranoia of the post-9/11 world for entertainment value. And it is as simplistic as it is jingoistic as it is irresponsible. MICHAEL DWYER
