The Kingdom is an exhilarating exercise in style. While many are comparing it to Syriana, The Kingdom actually has more in common with Rambo with its "let's kick the enemy's ass" mentality. As the opening credits role, director Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) assembles an intriguing series of clips that bring us up to speed with the current situation in the Middle East. Immediately following, the actor turned director (Berg actually played the lead in the silly 80's Wes Craven thriller Shocker) throws us straight into the horrific action as a team of terrorists wreak havoc on an unsuspecting Western compound in Riyadh. Through the first twenty minutes of the picture, the tension is palpable and Berg rarely gives the audience a chance to breathe. After a blistering first act, the plot of the film takes shape.

A team of military experts (headed by Jamie Foxx) lead a covert operation into the heart of Saudi Arabia. While there, Foxx and crew attempt to track down the perpetrators of the evil terrorist attack. The Kingdom has a surprising amount of humor and how could it not. After all, it co-stars Arrested Development's Justin Bateman in a strangely miscast role. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Batman immensely, but here, he feels a little out of place. Most of the cast (including Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jeremy Piven, and Frances Fisher) are solid, but Ashraf Barhoum gives the best performance as Colonel Al-Ghazi, a Saudi officer who reluctantly aids Foxx and crew in their mission.

Much of The Kingdom plays like a fish out of water story as these American experts must adapt to a world they don't really understand. Not surprisingly, The Kingdom is also a message movie and while some of the themes are a bit on the obvious side (hey, the Saudis are regular people just like us – some good, some bad), I still found this film enormously entertaining, particularly when Berg cuts to the chase. The final half hour of this picture is like a fusion of the heist sequence in Heat and the blockade chase in Clear and Present Danger. Exciting stuff. And the film's final moment is both powerful and unexpectedly cynical. The Kingdom isn't the provocative tour de force I was hoping for, but as a straight up action movie, it delivers the goods.