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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 4 October 2007

Blood sport misses target

THE KINGDOM
Directed by Peter Berg
Certificate 15

IT starts with a massacre on a school sports field in Saudi Arabia, the first time terrorists have struck in that country.
Suicide bombers leave more than 100 dead, and the far-reaching implications amid the Middle East turmoil are obvious to Washington.
Peter Berg’s action-packed drama purports to “go behind the headlines” as the FBI assembles a crack response unit – four experts led by special agent Fleury (James Foxx) in a top-secret mission to investigate the slaughter and track down the mastermind.
The White House wants to stay out of it. Fleury and his gung-ho team, including the obligatory kick-ass female (Jennifer Garner), go ahead anyway, with five days to get results.
In the searing heat of the desert they find themselves up against a wall of hostility and suspicion from their Arab counterparts, who want to locate the terrorists in their own homeland and don’t need help from Uncle Sam’s finest.
As two cultures clash, Fleury finds an unexpected ally in their minder, a Saudi colonel (Ashraf Barhom) who realises he needs their expertise when they both become targets for a second extremist cell.
The problem with this well-meaning but confusing foray into global intrigue is that it is virtually impossible to tell friend from foe.
I think the really bad guys are the ones wearing red-and-white check headdresses, but I can’t be sure. They all look the same.
Even in the climactic shoot-out bloodbath in a block of flats overlooking the sports field, you never know who is pumping lead into who.
Maybe that was the intention. If so, it misfires.

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