The Kingdom..
We’ve Been “Served” in the Wrong Platter.. Again..
[ a Movie Review.. or something like it ]
So, tell me..
What’s your thoughts about The Kingdom?
Don’t worry, i’m not questioning thought nor am i trying to open another “Down With the Monarchy” topic and the sort.. What am talking about is the Movie..
I’m sure some, if not most, of you have already seen it.. It’s that movie with the Non-Saudi cast with a Jordanian accent, the cheesy Arabic dialogue, and the stereotypical image of the Muslim screaming god’s name before turning himself to a shattered meat salad with a side of Asphalt just because of some “infidels” who happen to occupy some of his land (it happened a couple of times, but come on, it’s not the usual dish in the terrorist cousin menu)..
Some say that the movie cut Saudi Arabia some slack in showing it’s cooperation with the “invincible” FBI agents who hope to fix the wrongs of this world from their field office all the way across the ocean in Washington.. And truth be told, the movie showed that Saudi’s do indeed have a low-to-mild sense of humor and a very striking wit of an intelligent highschooler in showing their cross-nation collaboration.. But, i got to say, that i really “enjoyed” how we were portrayed.. and the Texan who showed us how to do things..
Apparently, according to what the movie lists..
- We’re all bearded, or light bearded in some cases..
- We don’t know how to solve a crime (surprisingly the crime rate in Saudi is lower than the homeland of the FBI)..
- We don’t shake hands with women, and we’re not allowed to see any emphasis of bosoms, hence why Jennifer Garner had to wear an abaya in front of the weird looking prince..
- We’re angry or stone faced most of the time, and rarely laugh to intelligent american jokes..
- Sowaidi is a smaller version of a Bosnian battlefield..
And not to forget..
- In any movie when Americans play heros, explosions is a must to give the overall “banging” taste of the heroic end over some ruins..
- We all must fear Abo Hamza and his children..
So the movie basically takes an actual event that happened years ago, and then adds a bit of Tom Clancy over the top to better the taste and the overall feel of the story.. Which basically doesn’t differ from any American Hero film.. Not forgetting how they messed with the time line of events and it was a bit shocking to see the depth of the research they took just to do this movie.. I mean, if it’s a lost civilization or the last mohican, you’d see research papers all over the place trying to get the plot right.. Here, well i think a couple of Google print out and lot’s of YouTube material would suffice..
The movie plot in general is nothing more than what follows..
Bad guy in foreign land >> Locals can’t locate him or not advanced enough to catch him >> the “heroes” interrupt the scene since some of their friends were caught in the middle >> they teach the locals and show them why they’re better than them >> the “heroes” use their global intel to gather information on everything >> locate the enemy, eliminate him >> Shake hands and give weird looks and fly away to the horizons..
That one slice of Americana that everybody tasted before, and now here it comes with a “sandy” flavor..
The producers did their homework and done an extensive amount of research on the Saudi city look and feel, and not to forget the highways, but i guess they failed to research on the people.. Because..
- Bearded people do form a big number in the population, but people the normal looking mustaches and goatees take the higher numbers.. (so they’re stereotyping)
- the majority of Saudi communicate in English and some are fluent speakers of the language, due to the lines of work and education.. (another old stereotype)
- Shaking hands with women is an issue in Islam, and the only thing it does to a muslim is he has to do wudu (the water related ritual muslims do before they pray) again, and it’s not a taboo..
- Our anti-crime intelligence manages (on it’s own) to capture any criminal activity, or terrorist activity for that matter, without any reliance to GPS systems or advance infrared beams, hence the low crime rates..
- We do laugh..
- Sowaidi is a poor district with some brain washing going on, but this was the situation for years and it’s been on the decrease since 2001.. And it never reached the level of having people armed with RPG’s and grenades..
- We have satellite, so we’re still in touch with the modern sense of humor..
- Abo Hamza is actually called Ammo Hamza (uncle Hamza) and it’s a Fish restaurant in Jeddah..
Now, i do realize that it’s Hollywood’s job to feed on the stereotypicalities.. But what i don’t understand is this..
- Why aim at the kingdom now, and “enhance” how the world portrays it, along with the new game “Call of Duty : modern Warfare” where most of the missions are located in Jeddah, Riyadh and Khobar..? (i guess i know the answer for that)
- Why can’t people just grow the hell up and realize that terrorism exists also in other parts of the planet, and stop aiming at the middle east for once.. Just once.. I want an anti terrorisim movie where the target, the suspect, the tools are not from the middle east, and the victims are not the poor kind-hearted americans.. Just once..
This is not the first time Saudi was portrayed as a violent entity, lest not forget Lawrence of Arabia and how we’re shooting each other for water.. I think that’s hilarious since WE don’t even have gun shops, and the majority of the population doesn’t own guns since you need to go through a very exhausting procedure to get a permit to buy a gun, and another to get ONE pack of bullets, and another to determine if its for hunting or self protection..
I enjoyed the movie honestly, because since i was a kid, i wanted to see a movie about exploded rolling american GMC’s in our highways like i saw in Magnum Pi and SWAT.. I guess 20 years later, i got my wish coming true after all..
Thank you America, and Thank you Hollywood..
And for those who watched the movie to actually get a feel of modern life, or trying to know something on Saudi reality (like the million retards who took this movie as a historical reference, where the only correct history in the movie was the artistic 2 minute intro of the movie), GROW UP and see for yourselves.. Get a BBC documentary or talk with one.. For god’s sake, this is another melodramatic joke that costed me almost two hours of my life that i can’t get back..
Oh, i almost forgot my rating.. I give it a 3.5 out of 10.. 2 of that 3.5 is for the intro..
Yours,
Lou..
Join the Conversation
AMEN!!
unfortunately, your first assumption that this film would have any kind of accurate portrayl of your country is sadly erroneous. The US film industry collects intelligence in pretty much the same fashion as the US government: there are many hard working folks who will go out and exhaustively research culture, background and issues (hence the few gems of somewhat accurate life in the film), whose work will then be shredded by dumbass, latte sipping executives who will pick out the parts that they think are real and discard the rest. This movie was made to be watched by a select portion of the American public, the ones who re-elected GWB, and thus must have bearded Ay-rabs (if they only have mustaches people might think they were mexicans) a super smart & able FBI (cause the government boys might get mad if folks see that billions of bucks in tech actually does NOT substitute for good police work)and a giant fight scene where four cops trapped in an alleyway can kill about twenty militants with cover, rpgs, and automatic weapons (cause Americans can shoot dem guns GOOD). However, I do have some questions for a native of the area:
-when the female cop goes to examine the body she is not allowed to do so because it is a Muslim. Now, besides the obvious question of why the Saudi cops didn’t have their own forensic coroner, what was that about?
-the overhead shots of the city were breathtaking, but whats with every building being a glaring shade of white? Does one of the crown princes own a paint monopoly or something?
As to the Saudis in the film coming off as pretty grumpy, after a month or so working with film people ANYONE who isn’t ordered to smile will have the same expression.
Given that this kind of stuff is enduring front page news, I’m sure that there will be excellent films coming out about terrorist activities in Asia, Africa, or up in the ‘stans…just don’t hold your breath waiting for the mainstream US film industry to do anything like it that doesn’t involve Americans.
Great post. There are tons of excellent films about terrorism within the Middle East and North Africa that are neither created by Americans nor involve them. Unfortunately many of them are low budget so they are not as publicized or great in quality, but they excel in terms of having a powerful storyline. I’ll create a list with short summaries and compile them in a new post sometime, I think a lot of people should look them up and start watching, plenty to learn from.
Perhaps the mainstream US film industry should just stick to chick flicks.
Your review of The Kingdom is good and very educational. I wish we had more of that around. I was called to be a part of this movie as a Saudi Arabian National Guard soldier because someone knew about my respect and love for the Arab and Muslim people. I was proud to be portraying an Arab character even as a SANG soldier. I would have preferred a romantic role with a beautiful woman but that was not the part. We all worked very hard under the 45 C deg. to 50 C deg. desert summer (118 deg. F.) heat. Because of the heat even Jennifer Garner fainted. Not to mention the people who died during the filming.
Hollywood makes movies to make money. If I had been offered a part as an Arab drinker or Arab rapist or disrespecting the religion I would have turned it down. But this movie played a story of fiction based on traces of historical facts. It is true about the fire and explosions in the movie but that makes people jump and cling to their seats. I noticed this around me during a preview of the film. It worked.
There were many Arab people casted in the film. One of them was even talking to me about bad spelling on a car plate. There were many non-intentional mistakes. But the effort was there and the movie was made during difficult times. Reviewers like you can spot them out and help make better movies. Now you see why I took the time to comment on your educational review. Thank you is my response.
I would suggest that you purchase the DVD and review the movie as DVD one more time and perhaps give the movie an extra score based on this request and the effort of all the cast. I value your comments and I can pass them on for the future. Your help is greatly appreciated. I probably will be reviewing the DVD for Deleted Scenes myself and posting them on youtube like I did for a movie called Local Color.
You probably never received a comment like this in any of your posts but here it is. You might get more for what you know.
Respectfully.
Peace be upon you.
Esra’a, I strongly recommend you watch a Pakistani film about extremism called Khuda Ke Liye about Islamic extremism and Muslims struggling in both the West and the Muslim world.
Eric, your assumption that i assumed this movie would be accurate is silly.. Being that in the last paragraph, i’m opposing the people who actually take similar movies as historical reference.. So, i hope there’s no confusion there..
Answering your questions..
- The Jennifer Garner scene where she’s prohibited to touch the body, that’s completely false.. It’s not mentioned in Religion, nor it is in traditions.. Being that we do have females who are studying human Autopsy.. We have Gray’s Anatomy, and we surely have a corner’s office.. So, you can ignore the movie’s portrayal of that..
- The colors of most of Riyadh’s houses, and Saudi in general, fall in the shades of white and light brown, being that we live in a hot climate and Light colors repel heat waves.. That, and housing policies for houses in the central parts of the city tend to follow one aesthetic color scheme, while the other houses in the uptown or downtown of riyadh have a more flexible color scheme..
America should keep on focusing on a remake of Indiana Jones, at least there all third world countries are greedy bandits who don’t know how to do anything without our old friend Indiana showing us how.. lol..
…
Lou,
While I would agree that there was much predictable stereotyping in the movie, and given that it was a fiction based loosley on factual events from 2003/4, I thought they did not too bad a job of portraying Riyadh.. albeit using the streets and skyline of Abu Dhabi for the city scenes.
While Suwaidi perhaps isn’t awash with RPGs and AK 47s there have been several incidents in Riyadh neigbourhoods and other cities over the last five years where RPGs and grenades have indeed been used with devastating effect by the bad guys in the numerous shootouts with security forces.
I agree that the research could have been much better. For example, it would be the Mabah’eth leading an investigation rather that the regular police and the real National Guard don’t look half as smart as they were portrayed in the movie.
One thing that was spot on was the scant regard for the preservation of a crime scene. I’ve been witness to two bombings here in Riyadh and in both cases, the crime scenes were contaminated or destroyed, ruining the chance of gaining valuable forensic evidence.
As for the inaccurate arabic accents.. perhaps if KSA had a film industry, there would have been enough Saudi actors to cast from.
I loved the movie … I thought it did a good job of presenting both sides, probably too kind to the Saudis and too balanced for a movie. It was trashed in the US as being too “pro-terrorist” but as we all know, most Americans don’t know that the majority of Arabs trashed the film, too.
My view of hollywood is that some Arabs are terrorists and their portrayal in and of itself is not wrong. The key is balance. If they present Arab terrorism — which exists — along with Arab good — which exists also even more — then a film is good film. Most Hollywood films are imbalanced and portray only the negative side of the Arab World.
But, that’s really our fault as Arabs. We’re among the richest people in the world and we spend our money on selfish pursuits ignoring communications, media, movies and TV sitcoms. Communications is the real power in the West and perception is reality. Arabs could change that perception if they approahced communications as a profession rather than a weapon of anger.
Just my thoughts. But great movie. I watched it twice … and wrote a lengthy piece on it many weeks ago at http://www.ArabWritersGroup.com …
Ray Hanania
Peter, I don’t know about your knowledge in Terrorism within Saudi, but RPG’s were never used as they were shown in the movie.. There were thousand of RPG’s ready to be used, but they were never used, and the RPG which were used, where used in the compound attacks and military Training.. So don’t worry, we’re more gun oriented than to go all out with missiles..
I do agree that we don’t have that much of an advanced CSI unit, but we’re getting there.. We’re growing too fast, and Crimes isn’t much in the focus as others, being that it’s rate is sticking to the same percentage or getting lower in some parts.. I’m not saying we should ignore it, but we’re getting there.. The latest Terrorist Pursuits in the kingdom when the Petroleum Center Explosions happened, they were spot-on and successful..
And Ray, i don’t see that balance you’re talking about..
Yours,
Lou..
One more thing..
“As for the inaccurate arabic accents.. perhaps if KSA had a film industry, there would have been enough Saudi actors to cast from.”
Maybe we don’t have our native film industry, but are you in touch with Arab Cinema? We have directors, producers, and world-recognized screen writers, and Actors.. Lot’s of Actors, who would’ve done an amazing job in the movie, but seems like the movie wanted more Green Card holders than native speakers.. We have media agencies that can be contacted, and Media companies that have a huge database of contacts who would offer their talents.. None was informed or called..
lou,
I’ll take it that your not much of an american movie fan then. Me neither, of the bang-bang-shoot-em-up variety. I’ll also take it that your not very well disposed towards american people either, perhaps you have your reasons, I dont know.
Your review I’m afraid came across to me as more of a rant than an objective critique, and I wouldnt mind betting that if you made a film about america it would be just as full of stereotypes as your article would suggest.
Does a woman also have to do Wudu after touching some one of the opposite gender?
Retards is a very negative and disrespectful word for those among us who may have genuine learning difficulties or other forms of mental disability.
I know that a lot of western culture is pretty trashy and unpleasant but thats the price of free expression. The strength is to tune it out and get on with what you want to do in life. Blue skies and happy trails
Well, to cure your curiosity, it was indeed a rant, and nothing more than a rant suited up as a review.. I think the whole thing fits with the profile of my first sentence..
“A Movie Review.. Or Something like it”
I approached the topic sarcastically, and apparently you were fooled by the facade..
However, you came out pretty confusing.. You talk about films, then you slash through with the woman question.. And am sorry if i’m being harsh with my terms in discribing those disabled members of soceity retards.. But they’re not leaving me any options i guess..
“I know that a lot of western culture is pretty trashy and unpleasant but thats the price of free expression.”
So is that good?
Do you see any blueskies or happy trails?
…
Not really, have you seen any foreign films? Most do heck of a lot research than your typical American movie depicting foreigners… Americans can’t even depict Canadians when they happen to be their closes ally, friend and all that stuff…
Yes
Jina, the americans have been winning the second world war for us brits for the last 60 years in the movies. we just smile and ignore it. OK Lou forget the woman question, you have as you chose not to answer it. Freedom of expression and thought that doesnt harm or brainwash any one else ? Yes I think thats good.
Best wishes Alan
Let me just quote two things to clear something out..
“I know that a lot of western culture is pretty trashy and unpleasant but thats the price of free expression.”
This is bad..
“Freedom of expression and thought that doesnt harm or brainwash any one else”
And this is good..
If you want to talk about Anthropology, and Freedom of Speech’s effects, then we should start a new blog..
And yes, i did ignore the woman question.. Not for my sake, or yours, but for the sake of what this topic is about.. But just to take it off the board, Muslim men and women only have to do Wudu again if they felt or touched the opposite sex intentionally, and that intention was out of lust.. If that happens, and they know it, they’re obligated to do Wudu again if they’re about to pray.. Other than that, it’s not forbidden..
Yours,
Lou..
I don’t think the first one is bad, each of us has a will, and we are free to do what we want to do under certain guidelines call the law. Remember that world isn’t black and white. What is trash and what is not is subjective, every person has their own opinion as to what is trashy and what is not. This is called freedom of expression, or general freedom.
Who is to say what brainwashes people and what doesn’t? This is also another subjective issue. To me all religions are instrument, a powerful instrument, which is used to brainwash and indoctrinate people to confirm to a collective mentality. I doubt most on this forum will agree with what I wrote… so from my point of view one may consider this as “bad”.
Freedom of expression is bad only if you wanted it to be bad and good if you wanted it to be good. Really what this comes down to is a person’s personal preference.
I agree, i should’ve explained that my words are my personal opinion not a general rule..
Glad you passed by the topic Jina..
I wanted to say thanks! Lou for your review of “The Kingdom” and all the commentary that follow it. Very interesting. I gave you 5 points for the review, and an extra 3 points for your humor (which, incidently, actually had me laughing out loud) for a total of 8. Great job! Thank you!
Hoping we all unite and pray that they don’t think about a sequel.. I don’t want to go through it again..
But thanks man.. I really appreciate it
..
Hold on you guys…
There must be a sequel. I need to make some money. Maybe next time I will get a bigger part in the movie, increasing my paycheck. It will give me a chance to tell the director about your educational comments.
Lou, I wish you had a blog in which you show pictures of the middle east and explain them. I am sure producers and directors would see it and learn from it. Resulting in better movies and the next Kingdom or any others, a better one.
Let me know if you decide it. You would be doing a great service to the people from the middle east.