If you doubt that we live in complicated times, you need only visit your nearby multiplex, where visceral clapping is likely to burst forth at complicated moments.
Such is the case with “The Brave One,” where you might hear applause for – or perhaps be one of those cheering – Jodie Foster’s avenging angel.
Ditto “The Kingdom,” which opens today.
At a recent preview, a final-act knockdown between an FBI agent (Jennifer Garner) and a Saudi Arabian extremist was met with cathartic whoops.
Actor-director Peter Berg’s action-loaded, idea-embracing political thriller starring Jamie Foxx doesn’t skirt post 9/11 tensions. It takes them on – although, says Berg, the idea for the film was planted when Hezbollah attacked the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996.
A team of FBI agents goes on an unsanctioned mission to Saudi Arabia to solve a lethally efficient attack on a Western compound for oil-company employees in Riyadh.
Inside the concrete bunkers and patrolled perimeters, families play softball and enjoy a company picnic.
On the roof of a distant apartment building stands a group of observers. A man tells a child to watch the ball field across the way. As all hell breaks forth at the compound, he makes sure the boy continues to witness.
A teen boy wields a videocamera. His amateur documentary will show up later on websites.
The indoctrination of children into cycles of hate or hope is a theme in “The Kingdom,” which boasts an in-tune ensemble in Foxx, Chris Cooper, Garner and Jason Bateman.
The soul of the film, however, belongs to Israeli-Palestinian actor Ashraf Barhom, who plays Saudi Police Col. Al Ghazi.
If, as reported, the movie tested well with Muslim audiences, it is likely due to Barhom’s work as the good cop in a very bad situation.
Ali Suliman (also Barhom’s co-star in the critically acclaimed “Paradise Now” about a suicide bomb mission) plays another police officer initially suspected of the terror plot.
The attack starts with machine-gun fire, intensifies, then escalates with shock-and-awe brutality. By the time the mayhem is done, more than 100 civilians and Saudi police are dead. And the wreckage (the movie was shot in the Phoenix area) evokes images of similar attacks on soft targets – in particular Oklahoma City.
The assault hits close to home when a friend and fellow agent dies. The deed may be the work of a Wahhabi adherent taking his inspiration from Osama bin Laden.
Special Agent Ron Fleury (Foxx) heads the unit. It’s a revealing name for a special agent who will blow into a foreign land with bracing authority. Not to take anything away from Foxx – there’s something old Hollywood studio system about him – but he doesn’t act. He is onscreen. And he carries the film’s moral hopes and ambitions like a seasoned athlete.
Danny Huston as the attorney general and Anna Deavere Smith as a deputy secretary of state represent the too- cautious State Department that sees more “boots on the ground,” even those of an FBI crime-scene investigation team, as further provocation.
Cinematography by Mauro Fiore and the cuts of editors Kevin Stitt and Colby Parker Jr. amp the anxiety. A glimpse of a tanker truck and a pickup with a camel quickly become signals of impending demise – just before they hastily revert to ordinary sights in a bustling desert metropolis.
Much of the film’s easier pleasures float on banter among the characters. (Matthew Michael Carnahan has another politically tinged script coming out this fall in “Lions for Lambs”). Here, the screenwriter plays with the verbal jousts and jests of action-flick chatter. “I didn’t say I, I said FBI,” says Special Agent Leavitt (Bateman) on a flight to Saudi Arabia.
There is, of course, a deeper reason why “The Kingdom” is easy to consume.
Its heroes represent the faces of cultural diversity, not cultural imperialism. These characters are participants in “the dream” (America’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s) who are waking up to the nightmare and trying to do something about it.
And maybe, after the debris settles, the avenging impulses are tempered and true alliances are forged, they might attempt to do something differently about it.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy can be reached at 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Be sure to check out Diary of a Mad Moviegoer at .
Jamie Foxx’s steady rise
Jamie Foxx is an Oscar winner, but he’s just on the verge of being a star who can open a big-bucks movie. Here’s a look at his top five movies (first figure is total domestic gross, second is opening weekend, in millions, except as noted):
1. Dreamgirls $103.4 ($378,950, 2006)
2. Collateral $101 ($24.7, 2004)
3. Any Given Sunday $75.5 ($13.6, 1999)
4. Ray $75.3 ($20, 2004)
5. Miami Vice $63.5 ($25.7, 2006)
BOXOFFICEMOJO.COM
“The Kingdom”
R for intense sequences of graphic brutal violence, and for language|1 hour, 48 minutes|ACTION/DRAMA|Directed by Peter Berg; written by Matthew Michael Carnahan; photography by Mauro Fiore; starring Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Ashraf Barhom, Ali Suliman, Jeremy Piven, Danny Huston, Richard Jenkins|Opens today at area theaters.
