Compliments of rental from Blockbuster Online (Blockbuster.com), I was finally able to get a copy of the movie The Kingdom on HD DVD. I'd been waiting impatiently for a copy since it was released over a month ago, with Netflix never able to deliver, or at least with them telling me that it was going to be a very (seemingly you could add about 2 more ", very"'s in there) long wait.
The Kingdom is a hybrid/crossover type film that mixes action and drama to tell a tale of an act of terrorism that will find an elite FBI team performing an investigation to help find the perpetrators of same. Part crime procedural, part drama, part action, part political, and more.
Jamie Foxx leads the cast, with Chris Cooper playing a supporting role, followed closely by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner. Jeremy Piven gets a bit part in the film as well (which reminds me a bit of his role years ago in the film Judgement Night). Beyond those actors, the film includes several actors of Arab descent that play major roles here as the story in the film takes place in 'The Kingdom' of Saudi Arabia.
The film itself is good. Not great, but easily good, and worth watching. The story is interesting, though the movie finds itself reaching a climax perhaps a bit too easily and too conveniently and that disappoints me a bit. I understand the movie is fiction and for entertainment purposes only, but seeing a story play out over a few hours, supposedly representing a few days of real time, and having it come to a conclusion may leave people thinking that we should be able to do the same when it comes to real life events like say catching the members of Al Qaeda. Movies are normally fiction though, and while in movies (and TV shows like CSI as an example) the murderer or perpetrator can be found by the end of the arbitrary deadline (the end of the show or movie) in real life things are much more difficult and we've found it to be quite difficult to find the bad guys out there and bring them to justice.
Keep in mind that in The Kingdom, the fictional story is set 'on hostile soil', in Saudi Arabia. A country where there are more than a few residents that are not fans of the western world. Finding people that don't like the U.S.A. there is probably easy. Finding people that don't like the U.S.A. and will actually take up arms and act out against U.S. citizens or our interests may not be that difficult either, but finding the individuals that are the leaders of those people may not be as easy since so many people believe in the cause, and so many people want to protect those leaders.
The Kingdom does an adequate job of depicting some of that reality, but at the same time, it's a piece of fiction, and is a movie that does wrap things up in a neat little box to hand off to the viewer at the end.
The movie isn't without lessons and messages though, and politics of various points comes through if you look for it. Not so much as to make the movie unenjoyable, but enough that you know there's political messages there. There are also minor points driven home about the difference in how women are treated in western culture versus how they'd be treated in Saudi Arabia (as an example).
On HD DVD the movie looks very good. Sharp and clean except where it's not supposed to be so clean (watch the movie, you'll get the point there 
) Combo format disc so the disc will play in a regular DVD player (or Blu-ray player) as well as in an HD DVD player (when turned to the right side).
I'm not convinced that the film is worth paying full fare for on HD DVD format. It looks good, but with HD DVD barely hanging on (though Universal, the studio that released this title claims they'll keep on going with their support of HD DVD), fence sitting at all when it comes to buying a title would seem to a vote in favor of waiting on purchase. For this particular film, there are a few interesting extras and bonus features including the ability to watch the climatic scene from multiple perspectives (various actor's views of the scenes). Bonuses like that do intrique me and leave me thinking that I should perhaps snag a copy, but I think I'd rather wait for it to be less expensive if possible. Somewhere down in the lower teens would seem about right price wise (including shipping costs).
