Movie reviews, production notes, and more! - "The Kingdom"

Movie Review: The Kingdom

Film Review By Sid Smith, Tribune arts critic "The Kingdom" is a high-octane thriller with an odd ingredient-ambivalence. It mixes suspense and shoot-'em-up action (some of it preposterous) with thorny questions about the war on terror and the shady pursuit of oil (some of them apt). The good guys/bad guys pyrotechnics are slickly delivered, thanks to producer Michael Mann, an old hand at speed and techno-dazzle. The gray tints in the thematic content are thanks to director Peter Berg and screenwriter Matthew Michael Carnahan. They use "The Kingdom" to explore our complicated alliance with Saudi Arabia and the moral complexities of petroleum geo-politics. The ultimate, not altogether satisfying marriage concludes that terror, like war, is hell, a standard Hollywood trope, as familiar and ancient as "All Quiet on the Western Front." But that gives the movie thematic heft and an emotional tug that's interesting, at least, however simplistic. "The Kingdom" has other virtues, including the exotic setting of Riyadh (in reality, Arizona), which affords a peek at Saudi Arabian society and its rigorous segregation of native populace from Western workers via an eerily isolated compound - an other worldly enclave about as unreal as a bubble-encased sci-fi colony on another ... read more Official Web Site: http://www.thekingdommovie.com/ Back to main movie page Showing Today at: Click here for other showings