Oscars ready?

Published on October 25, 2007

The Kingdom

The Kingdom

Cast: Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Ashraf Barhoum, Richard Jenkins, Jason Bateman

Directed by Peter Berg

Running time: 110 minutes

Hanuman rating: HHHHHH

A huge contender for next year's Oscars, "The Kingdom" is a solid, gritty, action-packed thriller about an FBI team tracking terrorist bombers in Saudi Arabia. It is not to be missed.

The film has two top figures at the helm: producer Michael Mann - known for well-researched, supercharged films like "Collateral" - and director Peter Berg, who made "Rundown" one of 2003's top movies, with the Rock and Christopher Walken battling it out in the Amazon jungle.

Here, Mann again teams up with trusted leading man Jamie Foxx, with whom he made "Ali", "Miami Vice" and "Collateral".

Foxx is superb as the fast-thinking team leader who forces the Saudi ambassador to allow his investigative team to get to the bottom of a grisly terrorist bomb attack in which hundreds of civilians are killed or maimed by a ruthless group of fanatics.

Hanuman saw the film twice, because the action and dialogue can't be fully savoured in just one 110-minute run.

Stealing the flick is Arab actor Ashraf Bahroum, an Israeli national. The 30-year-old portrays Foxx's "babysitter", a police colonel who has been assigned to make sure the FBI team doesn't break the many rules and regulations while working on the crime scene in Riyadh.

All of the players, including Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner, are excellent as Foxx's teammates, who have just five days to wrap up their probe.

Richard Jenkins, as their superior, has his own duels with the bad guys in the State Department, who do their utmost to block the US mission to Saudi Arabia, fearing it will make waves.

While it condemns the terrorists, the movie is equally critical of incompetent bureaucrats who put their jobs and perks above their duty, at the peril of the citizens they are supposed to serve.

The film will probably raise some complaints from more narrow-minded observers, but for the most part it's sympathetic to all sides, trying to see where the anger, blood feuds and animosity originate.

Foxx, Bahroum, Berg and Mann all stand to get a shot at next year's Academy Awards for their sterling work here.

by hanuman

The Nation