Big Screen: The Kingdom

I liked this movie, but I thought Peter Berg left the ending a little too ambiguous. I THINK I know what you’re supposed to think, but in leaving it ambiguous I think he left room for people with a radically different viewpoint than mine to say “yup, this [other thing] is what you’re supposed to think.” If the message is what I thought it was, it shouldn’t have been left ambiguous. I don’t want people to be able to prevaricate about that!

And I didn’t think it made that much sense to have Jason Bateman’s character so obsessed with what the whispering was. It was like using him as the plot to find out something the audience supposedly would want to know…except I didn’t think anyone in the audience was actually wondering that. It was a plot mechanism to reveal a similar attitude on both sides, but I think it could have been accomplished differently.

Jamie Foxx’s macho attitude is definitely one of his strengths as an actor so he really excels in parts that let him bring it on. Jason Bateman is great, although totally annoying in some scenes. I really dug the #2 Saudi policeman (the one who gets beaten early on).

I liked a lot of it, despite my aforementioned criticisms. But as the boy working the concession stand told me on my way in “It’s a good movie, but it’s scary. It can really make you paranoid about some stuff.”