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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. Written by Universal Pictures

my thought: This film could have pulled off a 7 or 8 out of ten, but Peter Berg has joined the ranks of sloppy, lazy filmmakers who tries to justify quick, sporadic cuts and shaky, hand-held camera-work as a "style". If you're a unskilled director who doesn't want to plan out your shots or bother to storyboard, just give you cameraman their cameras and tell them to keep moving and shooting. After all, if you're willing to edit quick enough cuts you can always "fix it in post".

We're seeing more and more of this type of film-making and in every case, we see films that would have functioned better if better directed. From Paul Greengrass' "Bourne" sequels to "Blair Witch" we hear audiences regularly complain about the shoddy direction, but when was the last time you heard someone say "it would have been better with more confusing, shaky camera-work"?