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What If Jihadists Watched The Kingdom?
by Marc T. Newman [media reviewer/critic] 11/1/07

Warning: This film analysis contains plot spoilers that are necessary to make the points contained herein. Read at your own risk.

There is nothing quite so quintessentially American as a company softball game. Everyone plays, regardless of age or ability. Families cheer on the teams. It is the iconic nature of this softer side of America’s favorite pastime that makes it the perfect target for the radical Islamic jihadists of The Kingdom. Demonstrating careful planning, the terrorists deliver a one-two-three punch that leaves theater-goers gasping at the indiscriminate carnage – and thirsty for payback packaged in the form of Jamie Foxx, who, as FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury, has arrived in Saudi Arabia with a crack investigative team to bring the bad guys to justice.

Critical reviews of The Kingdom range from those, like Michael Sragow at the Baltimore Sun, who see the film as a prime example of the need to combat terrorism with a police response, rather than a military one, to Glenn Kenny at Premiere, who observes that The Kingdom is “designed to stoke audience bloodlust.” Both of these reviews, like many others, look at the film from a U.S. audience’s perspective. As I watched The Kingdom, I tried to imagine how a jihadist might respond to it. The answer was chilling. [more]