Inflammatory Movies
Just back from seeing the Bourne Ultimatum, excellent. Incredible scenes of Tangier, great action, Matt Damon amazing – as always.
However, there was a trailer for a movie coming out this Fall called “The Kingdom.” Here’s a brief plot synopsis:
“When a terrorist bomb detonates inside a Western housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an international incident is ignited. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) quickly assembles an elite team (Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman) and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the madman behind the bombing.
Upon landing in the desert kingdom, however, Fleury and his team discover Saudi authorities suspicious and unwelcoming of American interlopers into what they consider a local matter. Hamstrung by protocol—and with the clock ticking on their five days—the FBI agents find their expertise worthless without the trust of their Saudi counterparts, who want to locate the terrorist in their homeland on their own terms. Fleury’s crew finds a like-minded partner in Saudi Colonel Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhoum), who helps them navigate royal politics and unlock the secrets of the crime scene and the workings of an extremist cell bent on further destruction.
With these unlikely allies sharing a propulsive commitment to crack the case, the team is led to the killer’s front door in a blistering do-or-die confrontation. Now in a fight for their own lives, strangers united by one mission won’t stop until justice is found in The Kingdom.”
This is all interspersed with plenty of terrorists with sneaky dark eyes peering out from burqas, wide angle shots of the faithful praying at a mosque (gasp!), and lots of surly looking brown men. One of the commenters on IMDb said it best – “To me it looks like another brown-guys-are-bad, white-and-black-guys-come-in-and-save-the-day sort of movie. I am so sick of the juxtaposition of scenes of Islamic holy rituals with those of a man firing an RPG at Americans/American soldiers/Middle Easterns wreaking havoc.”
As you all know, I’m not a huge fan of Saudis (mainly because of their habits in Morocco) but sheesh, come ON. I know it’s just a movie, but given the comments that have been thrown about lately, even by such liberals as Obama (about invading Pakistan), it all seems like more propoganda to get the American people to think favorably about us going in and “saving the day” in other countries.
Small things : One of the characters has my (somewhat uncommon) last name, grrr. And I’ll just bet the dialects aren’t even close to being accurate.
It is always funny when they try to portray Arabs in Hollywood movies, they get the head dress all wrong and the tunics looking like punjabis, the supposedly Egyptian characters speak Algerian, the gulf arab characters speak Egyptians, and if an American actor pretends to speak arabic, either it is gibberish or he slaughters the language. Which reminds me, I saw the passion of the Christ and it was supposed to be in the Ancient Aramaic language, but I could understand the words, to me it sounded like badly spoken Arabic with an american accent.
Enjoyed The Bourne Ultimatum as well but Mr. C and I lost it during the scene where Jason & Nikki pass through the police check-in as the enter Tangier by ferry. Not in a gazillion crossing have I ever had to have my passport stamped – we’ve always been waved through. And where are those booths?? I’d like to add that we were at the ferry terminal the day – or 1 of the days – they were shooting last year. Very cool.