Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. When I was walking out of the screening tonight of THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, I was given a pass for a screening next week. I took it, knowing full well I won’t attend, because it made my friends laugh. These are guys who attended test screenings with me back in the day. The pass was for THE KINGDOM, Peter Berg’s film, which has been screening like crazy lately. They’ve shown it to some press, and they seem to be test-screening it a lot, too. I’m not sure if they’re testing different cuts or just one cut over and over. Whatever the case, here’s another reaction to it from someone who just went:
Caught a sneak preview of The Kingdom tonight. I'm the guy who sent out that I'm A Cyborg review that people didn't like because I didn't like The Host as much as the rest of the world. This won't be as in-depth as that one, so don't worry, as everyone will get the chance to see this. I guess The Kingdom doesn't open until late September. I assumed it was going to open tomorrow or next week, as they didn't hand out comment cards or ask us any questions. They just let us in, told us to shut up and then showed the movie. Drum up word of mouth, perhaps? Which is a good idea, as the trailer isn't really... well, it's not very good or informative. Anyway, I went into this movie not expecting anything at all. Peter Berg directed, and so far he has a great track record (The Rundown, Friday Night Lights, both really solid movies in two very different genres and if you badmouth The Rundown you're dead to me PS). That was all it had going for it. The trailer had explosions too, so I guess that was cool. The movie had explosions as well, and lots of guns and gunfire. But what it also had was a very solid plot, excellent pacing, solid acting and solid writing. I was more than pleasantly surprised by The Kingdom, although if you're a shit liberal cynic you should stay away because there's not a single Shins song on the soundtrack and this movie never mentions No Blood For Oil. Instead we get a very real, quite powerful story about a community of white people who live in Saudi Arabia and the bomb that ruins their lives. The opening credits are some of the very best I've seen, and start the film off right. They immediately grab you and briefly fill you in on the history of Saudi Arabia and the US/SA oil trades. But everything happens in a quick, single moment, where one scene brilliantly melts into the next, and everything flows exceptionally well. Then the movie begins. And I was enthralled the entire time. There are moments of extreme tension, very real tension, that doesn't give you a break. There is some comic relief, but, with one exception, it's never actually there to relieve tension. It's there to be there. And it's almost always clever when it happens. But the most impressive thing was that it was FAIR. Probably the most fair portrayal of the situation I've seen captured on film, possibly since The Siege, which was pre-9/11 (I said it, don't kill me). But the relationships between the characters work so well and there are never any towelhead jokes, offensive remarks or even a hint that the Saudis aren't real people but are only stereotypes. They speak their language with subtitles most of the time, so there's never a conversation between plotting terrorists in English, which is something that's always bugged me, and the FBI struggle in communication at times. No jokes are ever at their expense, and each and every character (major, minor, background actor) is a real person, which felt really damn good. Everyone, including the villains, are real people and they're portrayed as such. Towards the end there were some things that were a little ridiculous, but only if you thought about it too much. It's a fucking movie and they didn't drive an SUV down an elevator (which gave me a huge boner in Die Hard, but in The Kingdom it would have been grossly out of place. That's all I'm saying. It's about context). I also found the final scene quite powerful, although it did toe the line between powerful and contrived/cheesy/DON'T YOU GET IT LET ME BEAT YOU WITH IT A LITTLE HARDER. But thankfully it leaned closer to the former than the latter, and really wasn't about leaving that theater happy. In fact, this isn't a happy movie. This isn't a turn your brain off movie. This is a sometimes hard, usually graphic, mostly realistic telling of a far too common story in a way that we have not had out of Hollywood before, and for that alone it gets my vote. But, again, if you're a cynic that doesn't admire the hard work of someone who doesn't read Mother Jones then you're not going to like it and you should probably just not see it because it'll upset you and then you won't be able to shut up about how offensive or stupid or boring or not special it was because you've attended the Middle Eastern Film Festival at your local underground movie store four years running so clearly you know everything there is to know about the situation there and HOW DARE Hollywood even attempt to tell those stories when REAL PEOPLE are making REAL MOVIES about the same stories seriously HOW DARE THEY. Mainly you're going to not like it and you're going to badmouth it and I liked it and I used to be like you and then I'm going to think about how I used to be like you and then I'll get sad because I now have a college degree and I, quite simply, know better. Seriously. Just skip it. But for the rest of you who want a well told story that treats everyone like real people, well, go see The Kingdom. It's pretty raw at times, though, so be aware. It's not gross or pornographic, but it has some pretty affecting and distressing moments. Thankfully people seemed to really enjoy it, because already it has a lot against it: It's a Hollywood movie about terrorism. It has Jaime Foxxxxx. It's a Hollywood movie that attempts to take terrorism seriously. It's directed by the director of The Rundown (seriously. Watch your mouth). I'm hoping that word of mouth saves this one, because even I went into it looking for the toe tag and I walked out very impressed.
