The Kingdom
The term “The Kingdom” refers to the Saudi Arabian kingdom. The film begins with a flashy time line (something you can interact with in the extras) that drops us into a modern Saudi Arabia. After a couple of terrorists disguised as Saudi police officers go on a drive-by shooting spree, a massive bomb inside an ambulance goes off, killing over one hundred people and injuring some two hundred more. One of those killed was FBI Agent Kyle Chandler, who plays Francis Manner. Francis, or Fran, was a good friend of several FBI agents including Jamie Foxx’s character, Agent Ronald Fleury. Upset by the bombing and the lack of Saudi effort in solving this horrendous crime, Fleury petitions the FBI Director to allow a small team of FBI agents to visit Saudi soil to try to find those responsible for this event.
Thanks to a media contact and a bit of blackmail, Fleury manages to secure a flight that night from Maryland to the crime scene. He takes along three other agents, Bomb Technician Grant Sykes, Forensics Expert Janet Mayes, and agent Adam Levitt. These roles are played by Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman respectively. When the team arrives some eighteen hours later, they discover just how restricted their access to pertinent information is. A decent part of the film has the team trying to convince their hosts to allow them access to talk to witnesses, exam dead bodies, and explore the bomb site. Another leg of the film focuses on these forensic and criminal investigations that help point to a known terrorist leader whose whereabouts are unknown.
The team eventually gets Saudi police help to raid a suspected building, and they find a weapons cache, terrorists, and other terrorist materials. As they are being escorted to the airport for their flight home, more terrorist activity causes them to literally rollover in their vehicle on the freeway and the ensuing long action scene that comes of it is the most interesting part of the film.
On Blu-ray
The Kingdom on Blu-ray packs quite a punch. The presentation quality is outstanding, providing a beautiful picture and sound. I didn’t see any signs of compression or any technical miscues in the video, nor did I hear anything that was very disagreeable in the 5.1 DTS-HD audio track. As far as extras, there are several:
-Deleted Scenes – There are eleven minutes of deleted scenes in HD.
-Constructing The Freeway Sequence – This is an eighteen minutes feature in SD that features various members of the cast and crew in interviews, talking about the large crash/explosion scene during the latter part of the film. Some interesting discussions from the crew show how the idea went from drawings on a napkin to the big screen.
-Creating The Kingdom – This is a thirty-five minute feature in SD that is split into multiple parts, each going over various aspects of the film and its creation. Cast and crew interviews are included.
-History of The Kingdom – An interactive time line is the focal point of this extra feature. When selected, you can browse a time line and read about various events related to America-Middle Eastern relations, starting from around 1930.
-Mission Dossier: Surveillance – I thought this feature was unusual but really neat. Here, you can view six different scenes in the film in a picture-in-picture view. On the one side, you have the film, on the other, you have a basic CG sequence that follows the events of the film. In the street shootout scene for example, there are captions and labels for the various vehicles and buildings involved.
-U-Control: Universal’s U-Control feature is part of this Blu-ray release. A handy user’s guide video explains what U-Control is all about and how to enable and disable it seamlessly while watching the film. Different types of bonus materials are given different icons. So if you have U-Control enabled, and a scene that has a special U-Control feature comes on, you can see what type of feature it is and press a button to play it while watching the film; very cool.
-Audio Commentary – An audio commentary track with Director Peter Berg is also included.
And with that, let’s wrap up…