With The Kingdom, director Peter Berg and writer Matthew Michael Carnahan have crafted a very interesting movie, a hybrid of sorts. On the one hand, The Kingdom functions as a very somber film about oil-based politics in Saudi-Arabia, and on the other, it's a very well-made, intense action movie. As a friend of mine so delicately put it, "it's a simplified Syriana with action." That just about sums it up.

Don't take that Syriana comment as a backhanded complement, though, because The Kingdom resembles Syriana in the best of ways. Revolving around a team of FBI specialists investigating a terrorist attack (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman) in "The Kingdom" (a compound housing several Americans), the movie wastes no time grabbing your attention. This starts off with my vote for the best opening credits sequence of the year, a mini-documentary of sorts so well-crafted, I completely forgot to read most of the titles. From there, The Kingdom wastes no time thrusting its viewers straight into the action. While it feels wrong to commend a film for its opening terrorist attack, Berg shoots it with such an incredible sense of immediacy, it is impossible not to. This sequence sets the tone for the rest of the movie, and makes it clear we will be watching a very different action movie than we are used to.

The Kingdom takes its violence very seriously, and while one could easily watch this for the sole purpose of being thrilled there is much more to it. This is a responsible action movie, never quite letting you off the hook for reveling in its carnage. It paints a very bleak picture of a world in conflict, and just as it seems to be running the risk of becoming a flag-waving "let's kill anyone that's not American!" movie, it drops a bomb, completely subverting our expectations. The Kingdom may handle some of its politics clumsily, but for the most part, it delivers its message effectively. This is essentially the anti-"24", and for that, we should be grateful.

The Kingdom also offers up a pretty good array of features as well. The most interesting of which is Peter Berg's commentary, particularly in regards to the Carnahan's original ending. Brad already discussed it in depth and it seems to be getting scooped a lot, so I won't say much, except that it makes for a very interesting listen, even if you didn't care for the movie. We also get a handful of featurettes which explain the action scenes, the best of which focuses on the climactic apartment shootout. These featurettes are surprisingly entertaining and informative for supplements of this kind. As long as you were impressed by the action, these are worth sitting through. There also happens to be an "interactive timeline" about Saudi Arabia's history, but, due to the awesome opening credits, it's more or less useless.

If you're looking for some new thrills, then The Kingdom is hard to beat. It contains plenty of brutal, visceral action, and despite its flaws, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Sure some of the performances may be less than great (especially Garner) and the "message" may come across as heavy-handed at times, but it does something most recent actions do not. It actually makes you think.