There’s quite a bit of good to the film but a quite a lot of bad too (pretty much like the lead character). The third act in particular is woeful. I did like the whole concept of the alcoholic, inconsiderate superhero and I’ve read that the original screenplay was much darker and so too was the first cut of the film but it suffered a lot of edits to avoid an R rating. That kind of told in the film. I got a real feeling that there was so much more that could have been done with it. I think it would make an interesting television series but that’s probably unlikely. 4 crumbs out of 10.

The kingdom of the film’s title here is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The excellent opening credits gives a quick history lesson to those who are a bit behind on US / Mid-East relations and then we’re taken into a great scene of a terrorist attack on a US compound in Riyadh. From there, the FBI sets up an elite taskforce to go to Saudi Arabia and kick some ass.

Of course politics gets in the way of the ass-kicking so the FBI dudes (and dudette) have to work around the protocols. There was one scene that I really loved involving Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, two of the FBI agents, where they give the beating of a lifetime to some poor Arab terrorist. I could only laugh at the thought of them playing the lovely suburban couple looking to adopt a baby in Juno.

Anyway, the film as a whole is quite decent. 6 crumbs out of 10.