I saw this movie in a dollar movie recently ... actually my 2nd viewing, I saw it when it first opened around her, a month or so ago. I liked it then, and I like it now.
First, I really liked the introductory "background history". I would not recommend for a moment regarding this as "real history". But a geopolitical thriller like this needs something to set the geopolitical stage for the story, and this introduction made for a great quick "set up" that to me works very well indeed.
The idea of intermixing this intro with the introductory credits saves time and sets it apart from the rest of the story
which is what a good "set-up" should do. It's very much like having an opening panel, such as we see in a lot of 1930s or 1940s historical romances, that gives us a similar "historical" set-up. "In 1592, King Richard had left England on Crusade. While gone, the Sheriff of Nottingham ruled supreme. Only Robin Hood and his band of merry men stood in his way." In this example, I'm pulling the date out of the air, and everything else is made up, too. But that's the kind of placard they used to use to set up a Robin Hood movie. Well, in The Kingdom, the introductory sequence was an elaboration of that introductory placard. And to me it worked great setting up the story.
And what a great story. Like any good geopolitical thriller, it maintains a careful if sometimes intricate balance between the individuals involved in the narrow, here-and-now action, and the personages and institutions involved in the much larger "big picture" So we have 4 particular FBI agents constantly interacting with and reflecting on the larger political context in Washington, DC and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. There's just enough dialog about these things to keep the story moving, without overwhelming the audience with the kind of boring "talking heads" scenes that afflict another contemporary movie about the War on Terror, Lions into Lambs. We have plenty of material to prompt from us a personal interest in the individuals involved here, who are presented as convincingly real people, and not as the kind of impersonal stereotypes who sit and lecture each other in Lions into Lambs.
The story is told with an immediacy and a fast pace that kept my attention throughout. Gritty realism is the style throughout and is carried off very convincingly, as far as I can see. All of the actors turned in solid performances from a script that seemed to me to be very convincing. The cinematography was excellent throughout.
All in all, I think The Kingdom is a wonderful movie that quickly engaged me, and then set about establishing and retaining my keen interest from beginning to end.
