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The Kingdom is an action-packed political thriller that shouldn't be missed. It's full of everything a good movie is all about: a good story, great acting and a skilled director leading a creative team that knows how to put it all on the screen.

A terrorist bomb initiates a bloody and heartless attack on an American oil company residential compound outside of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Men, women and children are indiscriminately killed in one gory wave after another. Riddled with terrorist infiltrators, the Saudi police guarding the compound are helpless to stop the carnage.

The terrorist attack is the dramatic event that propels the rest of the movie forward. After losing one of its own in the attack and not trusting the Saudis to capture the terrorists in their midst, the FBI decides to assemble a crack investigative team (acting powerhouses Jamie Fox, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman, and of course the obligatory woman – Jennifer Garner) to track down the terrorists.

Of course there's the little problem of jurisdiction, and it is only though blackmailing the Saudi Ambassador that they obtain permission for a five day incursion. From the beginning, it's the FBI versus jealous Saudis and the U.S. State Department, but the FBI team gradually gains a crucial ally in the dedicated Col. Al-Ghazi.

This is a strong, tough movie, even more so because of its cast. Jamie Fox plays the FBI leader with qualities of quiet competence combined with a "damn the torpoedoes, full steam ahead" approach. Likewise for Chris Cooper, but with a hint of the slightly unhinged character that we saw in his portrayal of another FBI man, the traitor Robert Hanssen in Breached. But the real scene stealer is Ashraf Barhoum as Col. Al-Hazi, who wins the audience over as an honest man committed to truth, justice, and if not the American way, at least a loyal Saudi anti-terrorist way.

Despite being a well-told thriller, the film does have its weaknesses. Its politics is confusing, and neither side of the political spectrum will find this movie exactly to its liking. Its underlying message is that Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, is the issue, and that the American thirst for oil drives everything. And we mark the words of the terrorist leader, uttered to his young grandson: "We are going to kill them all." Those happen to be the same words that Jamie Fox whispered into the ear of a fellow FBI agent after the movie's opening carnage. It's an unending cycle of hatred and revenge.

But just when the liberals are getting happy with the movie, it shifts into conservative territory. State Department officials in Saudi Arabia are rather viciously portrayed as obstacles in the fight against terrorists, people more concerned with offending Saudis than capturing culprits. From the movie's point of view, Americans have the right to break doors down in any country they please. If you wait until the end of the movie and read the fine print in the rolling credits, you will see "International political advisors: Kissinger and Associates."

Why did we pick this movie?
Because even if its politics is confusing, it makes us think about the Middle East in a different way from the evening news. And because the riveting performance of Ashraf Barhoum should give him a shot at an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Opens in theaters everywhere, September 28.

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