We watched The Kingdom last night. I was a bit disappointed. It was a decent movie but I had been expecting more. My mother had billed it as “the best recent movie about the Middle East.” I am guessing that either my mother has very different tastes than me or (and I think this is the more likely option) all the other major Hollywood releases about the Middle East have sucked royally.

Things The Kingdom had going for it:
1. Chris Cooper
2. Chris Cooper
3. Jennifer Garner with a gun
4. Chris Cooper
5. Jamie Foxx’s freakish, all-encompassing hairline

Things going against The Kingdom:
1. Not enough Chris Cooper
2. Peter Berg as a director

I blame the lack of Chris Cooper on Peter Berg, who is a sixteen year old boy with a directing style most closely resembling dropping anvils on people’s heads. When I saw his name pop up in the credits I knew there was no hope for subtlety or intellectualism. This is a man who thinks suspense can be created solely with quick cuts. This is a man whose only semi-decent contribution to the world of directing was Friday Night Lights, which I’m sure was only possible because he is, as previously mentioned, a sixteen year old jock in a scrawny man’s body.

Witness the special features. In the car chase featurette, Peter Berg sits in a stunt car, wearing a t-shirt for one of his Friday Night Lights high school football teams (we get it Peter, you directed a popular movie, thanks for the reminder), and declares “This car would be great for picking up chicks.” He never gets to test this theory as no woman appear on set in any capacity until the section where Peter Berg admires the final footage of some big explosions. He is impressed with the results and remarks that even though it took a long time to set up, it was worth the wait. He then proceeds to compare the several days it took to set up a special effect to the two years he had to wait to get into some girl’s pants when he was sixteen. He even says her name. Classy, Peter. Very classy. I’m sure that woman is very grateful that you compared her relationship to you to a car chase.

Sadly, this idiocy has polluted the movie as well. The story is about an elite squad of FBI agents who go to Saudi Arabia to investigate a deadly bombing on an American compound. These FBI agents, despite having back stories suggesting experience with the Middle East, forensics, and other high level training, are remarkably stupid. This stupidity is especially evident in Jason Bateman’s character, who seems to know nothing about anything. He is seen at one point reading “The Koran for Idiots.” My faith in the FBI is less than perfect, but I like to believe that special agents have, at the very least, the intelligence of a fifth grader. I really don’t understand why these FBI agents were portrayed as such morons, especially considering that they’re the heroes of the story. Once again, I blame Peter Berg. “The Koran for Idiots” was probably a book he bought himself when the studio gave him the job.

My evidence for my theory that Peter Berg dumbed down this movie comes, once again, from the special features. There were several deleted scenes in which Jennifer Garner and Jamie Foxx testify before the Attorney General as to their plan for going to Saudi Arabia and their reasoning behind it. These scenes, in which they appear to actually have brains, as well as lines mentioning their previous experience in Saudi Arabia and their skills at being agents, were cut. Also removed from the movie was the entire idea that this was a quest for revenge on the part of both Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner. In the final (Peter Berg) cut, it is a Noble and Brave One Man War starring Jamie Foxx, who gets all the good lines and all the good action sequences. The deleted scenes reveal that the original story gave Jennifer Garner equal involvement both planning and executing the action, not just that Jamie picks her to go along with the team. Peter even cut her witty one-liner at the end of the climactic action sequence. In the deleted scene, Jennifer fights a bloody battle, wins, and has a funny action-hero line. In the final (Peter Berg) cut, Jennifer fights the same battle, then collapses to the floor and pants and wheezes, leaving it up to Jamie Foxx to pop his head into the scene and get the one-liner for a fight he didn’t even participate in. I suppose Jennifer fared better than Chris Cooper, who I think Peter Berg forgot about entirely, as he doesn’t appear in the final third of the movie at all.

Peter, honey, Chris Cooper is probably one of the greatest living actors. And Jennifer Garner, despite having those breasts I know you must find terribly distracting, sells fight sequences as well, or better than, most men. To waste both Chris Cooper and Jennifer Garner, when you are lucky enough to get them to be in a movie that could play to their strengths, is to make your movie SUCK.

Thus ends my rant about The Kingdom. It could have been a really fantastic action thriller. Instead it just makes Americans look like even bigger morons than we already are.