The Kingdom in question is Saudi Arabia, and the film fantasises about a no-nonsense American vengeance on the bad Arabs who live there. It makes sure to point out that good Arabs live there, too, but Syriana, or even Three Kings, this movie is not. The thin veil of quasi-profoundness is not enough to mask the its main goal of showing stuff being blown up real good. Do not get me wrong, gifted actors are giving their professional best and a talented action director is staging all his set pieces as if his life depended on it, but they all are plugged into a rather questionable context. The pitching of American good guys against the evil Arab terrorists and engineering justice Dirty Harry style may provide some instant gratification to hopefully a minority of popcorn-munching action lovers, but it advances very little the cause of understanding the “other” that the film nominally champions.
The movie starts with a bang: the evil Arabs of uber-terrorist Abu Hamsa stage a monstrous attack on an American compound in Riyadh – stormed gates, suicide bombers and everything – and hundreds of civilians lay dead and wounded. Consumed with righteous anger for his tragically killed compatriots, among whom there was a colleague of his, an FBI agent named Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) gets permission for an FBI investigation in Saudi Arabia itself. Naturally, a team of dependable movie stereotypes for maximum effect is summarily assembled: a good old explosives expert (Chris Cooper), a forensics wizard in the body, clothes and attitude of a hot no-nonsense chick (Jennifer Garner), and a wise cracking intelligence expert of Jewish origin (Jason Bateman), who seems the only one to have heard of the internet. The quartet is given five days to conclude its investigation and the protagonists have no choice but to be as straightforward and as culturally insensitive as the task requires, but they seem to be constantly hampered by their impeccable local minders (Ashraf Barhom and Ali Suliman) who give them to read The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Koran. The terrorists, however, quickly get wind of the incoming American presence and are determined to treat the newcomers to their horrible worst.
There is no denying that the film is very effective on a basic action level. Actor-turned-director Peter Burg (Welcome to the Jungle) makes it all too clear what his forte is as he stages his mayhem with a blend of zeal and panache. The in-your-face bang of the movie’s first half hour, however, is at an uncomfortable contrast with the stiff dialog that handicaps an otherwise strong and appealing cast. The ironic and odd result of this is the fact that the characters with the most resonance are those played by the two Arab actors Barhom and Suliman, yet they are clearly there to provide the obligatory balance required by some screenwriting arithmetic. Sadly, that is true for the movie’s musings on the common and dividing lines of the civilised and the monstrous. The latter feel like half-baked window dressings to the big bangs that put the bad guys where they rightfully belong – but after all, if you ask the studio, they will tell you this is what puts bread on their tables.

2 ? out of 5 stars