Job Discussion Forums

harry the hobbit · Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:16 pm Post subject: The Kingdom with Jennifer Garner

What do you all think of this new movie? Shame the oilworkers compound is outside Riyadh instead of in Eastern Province but why let facts get in the way of a good story. Jennifer Garner has the greatest arms.

The Kingdom

Jamie Foxx leads a crack FBI response team on a hush-hush mission into Saudi Arabia after US oil workers and their families are wiped out in a terrorist attack. Their mission is to track down the shady killers...but they've also got to contend with hostility from the Saudi bureaucracy and a religious regime way out of their comfort zone. Michael "Heat" Mann produces and Peter Berg directs this efficient action thriller.
Movie rating:
Stars: Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Chris Cooper
Director: Peter Berg
Year: 2007
Running time: 109 mins
Certificate: 15
Related Sites
The Kingdom Official Website
America's self-styled role as the world's policeman dispensing justice with lantern-jawed fairness gets another run-out.

More than 100 American oil workers and their families are murdered in a terrorist attack on their compound on the outskirts of the Saudi capital Riyadh.

The American people want action. Nay, they demand revenge...but the balance of power in the Middle East is such that the usual carpet bombing is out of the question.

No, a softly-softly approach is required. Which, in this case, means blackmailing the Saudi ambassador into allowing an FBI forensic unit into the country to sift the carnage for evidence.

Jamie Foxx and his team have just five days to unobtrusively pinpoint the whereabouts of the cowardly assassins and - what's the phrase? - terminate with extreme prejudice.

However, they face an added complication with the bloody-mindedness of Saudi officialdom and the restrictions of a delicate operation in a hostile environment.

As a lean, efficient action thriller, Peter Berg's topical tale delivers on all fronts, particularly a closing action sequence which takes its lead from Bourne in a heart-pounding sequence of pure adrenalin.

Where's it falls down is portraying a political world of post-September 11 wish fulfilment where no-one but Uncle Sam has the resources, integrity or scientific nous to sort this bloody mess out.

You can't expect a Saudi forensics team to spot shards of glass in a bomb victim's flesh and then put them all together to reconstitute a marble. No, Jennifer Garner has to do that.

You can't even trust these dithering Arabs to correctly comb a blast site for crucial, incriminating evidence. No, that's Chris Cooper's bag.

What you can expect of the Saudis is bureaucratic stonewalling with only Ashraf Barhom's police colonel Al Ghazi offering a resonable level of co-operation.

At the end of the day, it's a supremely efficient action caper handicapped by a political dimension drawn straight from a Neocon wish-list.

Think Team America with the radiators turned up....

Tim Evans

007

Another Mickey Mouse film directed by Uncle Sam and made in Hollywood!

globalnomad2 · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 562

I'll tell you about reality, because I'm in the oil-and-gas industry now and those in the know tell me the Saudis censored what really happened in Khobar. What happened was, the thugs had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted once they gained access to the compound, and what they did was go from office to office, separating westerners, and slitting the throat of every westerner they could find.

The film is in essence correct...Saudi authorities are often either incompetent or in league with the murderers.

harry the hobbit · Posted: Fri Oct 05, 2007 7:02 pm Post subject:

I'll tell you about reality-everybody knew about what really happened in Khobar. Incompetent-no kidding is that why the real work is done by foreigners.

Bebsi · Joined: 07 Feb 2005 Posts: 958

globalnomad2 · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 562

I suspect that some oil people do know what really happened. I hardly think that concept is bizarre.

harry the hobbit · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 12:56 am Post subject:

Suspect? You said you had the real inside story despite the fact that everyone already knew the real inside story.

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

We even had a link or two here to writings by people there - or they may have been sent to me by PM. The whole situation led to a lot of teachers departing the country for a year or two.

No real mysteries except for the newbies.

VS

harry the hobbit · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 1:13 am Post subject:

Even the venerable Scot 57 left.

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

scot47 did indeed flee, but he returned soon after, much chastened by the horrors of life outside the Magic Kingdom.

As for scot57 ? Who is he ?

globalnomad2 · Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 562

Well I didn't know what really had happened in Saudi until I joined the oil-and-gas industry last month in a place far, far away from the Middle East. Maybe because I left the stupid Kingdom 11 years ago and haven't given it a thought since then except for the occasional nightmare. MOD EDIT

007 · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 12:31 pm Post subject:

harry the hobbit · Posted: Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:04 pm Post subject:

Now Scot can work another ten years at the best uni in Middle East.

mishmumkin · Joined: 01 Sep 2007 Posts: 929

Cleopatra · Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:24 am Post subject:

I hardly think working in the 'oil and gas industry' - presumably as an ESL teacher - automatically gives one some sort of insiders' knowledge into the activity of militants in KSA. Besides, rumours of official complicity in the attacks were widespread surfaced almost immediately after the events - there's nothing new or exclusive about them.