Controversial?

Lover: Taken from Tesco DVD rental.

“Based on the Western view of terrorism, the Middle East and the American viewpoint, this is an extremely plausible and extremely entertaining action movie. OK its obviously American biased, the outcome is rarely in doubt, but the whole story, the action and the horrors of terrorism play our really well, I thoroughly enjoyed this and would say it was a definate recommendation.”

Pretty good review of a pretty good movie…

Hater: Taken from Tesco DVD rental

“WOW! Who would have thought that a group of 4 Americans could go out and be incredibly dull for an hour and then single handed, in the last fifteen minutes of the movie save Saudi Arabia single handed and end the world terror threat! Absolute & total rubbish! I was so angry by the end of the Movie that you could quite easily understand why the US has so many enemies however this was better than the boredom that it makes you endure for the first hour YAWN! Sanctimonious RUBBISH! Jamie Fox must have been high on Crack Cocaine & Meths when he agreed to do this movie his acting as usual was brilliant however who would want to bring this character to life??? His Character is an idiot as are all his dim witted FBI comrades This movie should be tried for hate crime!”

this is a little over the top to be honest, I’ll tell you why bellow…

What I thought:
The Kingdom is one film in a long line of films that try and deal with the “war on terror”. It’s a touchy subject but let’s keep the real political debate away from being entertained shall we. There’s your first problem and why most of these films don’t translate, some people go to see it cause the trailer looked good or they heard it was an action movie, others go to see it expecting to see a thought provoking statement about terrorism and the conflict in the middle east.

The Kingdom comes out more on the entertaining side despite the rather misleading opening titles which works as a history lesson in Middle Eastern conflict. From that moment on the film is out to shock you, thrill you and surprise you, everything a entertaining thriller should do. Question is does it work on those things, answer pleasantly yes. The team of FBI agents who bribe their way over to investigate a terrorist attack are well played if a bit stereotypical. Jason Bateman for me is a stand out not because his better than the rest but because it’s a very different film for him to have done, good on the CV.

One thing that annoys me is people saying something is “pro American”, most of time I agree with the statement but it is over used! You’re watching a film where Americans have just died, more Americans risk their lives to find out who did it and the “bad guys” are Middle Eastern extremists. Ok so it is a bit a pro American and they do pick up a “token” middle eastern character during the film but just ignore politics and the news for a bit and sit back an enjoy what is not a half bad thriller.