A team of U.S. government agents are sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East.A team of U.S. government agents are sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East.A team of U.S. government agents are sent to investigate the bombing of an American facility in the Middle East.
- Awards
- 5 nominations
Videos2
- Kevin Fleuryas Kevin Fleury
- (as T.J. Burnett)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
Storyline
- Taglines
- An elite FBI team sent to find a killer in a hostile country
- Genres
- Certificate
- 16
- Parents guide
Did you know
- TriviaJennifer Garner collapsed on the set in Phoenix twice due to the extremely high temperature, over 115 degrees Fahrenheit / 46 degrees Celsius.
- GoofsIn the intro sequence, the film says that oil was discovered in 1933 by accident and that the ARAMCO was founded as the first union between Saudi Arabia and the United States in 1938. In reality, the dates are switched. The company was founded by Chevron in 1933 and the same company later discovered oil in 1938.
- Quotes
Attorney General Gideon Young: I'm gonna bury you.
FBI Director James Grace: You know, Westmoreland made all of us officers write our own obituaries during Tet, when we thought The Cong were gonna end it all right there. And, once we clued into the fact that life is finite, the thought of losing it didn't scare us anymore. The end comes no matter what, the only thing that matters is how do you wanna go out, on your feet or on your knees? I bring that lesson to this job. I act, knowing that someday this job will end, no matter what. You should do the same.
- ConnectionsFeatured in HBO First Look: The Kingdom (2007)
- SoundtracksStay (Wasting Time)
Written by Dave Matthews (as David J. Matthews), Stefan Lessard, LeRoi Moore
Performed by Dave Matthews Band
Courtesy of The RCA Records Label
By Arrangement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment
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.
- cdelacroix1
- Dec 19, 2007
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- El reino
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $70,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $47,536,778
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $17,135,055
- Sep 30, 2007
- Gross worldwide
- $87,019,158
- Runtime
- 1h 50min
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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