Chicago Sun-Times
Rob Nelson |
5 |
...earns points for its unsubtle suggestion that vengeance succeeds chiefly in the creation of more enemies, but it lacks the obnoxious pizzazz that Michael Bay or Tony Scott would have brought to the material. |
Chicago Tribune
Sid Smith |
6 |
...a high-octane thriller with an odd ingredient-ambivalence. |
E!
Dezhda Mountz |
10 |
Breathless action sequences are balanced with a sensitive interpretation of the political and cultural gray areas of (Mid)East-West relations. |
filmcritic.com
Chris Cabin |
4 |
...will either rally those in the theater or piss off every single ticket holder in sight. It's gonna be awesome. Indeed, sardonic catcalls of "kill all the towelheads!" |
New York Post
Lou Lumenick |
4 |
...xenophobic, overblown... |
TV Guide
Ken Fox |
6 |
...fast-talking and unnecessarily complicated... |
Reel
Pam Grady |
6 |
...simplistic, jingoistic... |
Slant Magazine
Nick Schager |
2 |
...don't think this is some namby-pamby anti-war documentary -- this is American-made action, baby! So let's shoot some thugs, save Jason Bateman from being beheaded, and learn valuable lessons about the cost of war via the death of sympathetic Saudis. That's what The Kingdom is talking about. |
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers |
7 |
Matthew Michael Carnahan's caffeinated script isn't much concerned with balance, but it gets some anyway, from the resonant images of culture clash that Berg catches on the fly and a remarkable performance from Ashraf Barhom... |
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum |
4 |
...he [Berg] sometimes lingers in close-up over the pleasing composition of his movie stars' faces, admiring them like glamorous fashion ads inserted between flailing action sequences. Why? Maybe to give himself a break from the futility of his mission. |
New York Times
A. O. Scott |
7 |
The result is a slick, brutishly effective genre movie: Syriana for dummies. |
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan |
5 |
...wants us to feel as if we're watching something relevant when what's really going on is a slick excuse for efficient mayhem that's not half as smart as it would like to be. |
People
Leah Rozen |
7 |
...a gripping action-thriller... |
LA Weekly
Robert Wilonsky |
3 |
It’s all so much noise and nonsense -- a hateful waste, adding nothing to the dialogue about war, loss, sacrifice and intolerance save for the yippees and hell-yeahs. And the last two minutes are downright execrable -- an excuse masquerading as an explanation for the ever-growing pile of corpses in movies that pretend to say something real about life and death. |
Village Voice
J. Hoberman |
6 |
...a timely -- if tepid -- fantasy of American vengeance on the Qutbian extremists of Saudi Arabia. |
Onion AV Club
Scott Tobias |
5 |
...indulging in a queasy brand of escapism. |
Maxim
Pete Hammond |
9 |
...a riveting ticking time bomb of a movie that really works. |
Premiere
Glenn Kenny |
3 |
...is delivered with all the conviction one might apply to throwing away a Kleenex... |
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer |
6 |
...mixes fire fights with a fiery message. |
This movie is available on DVD/Video