2007 / Peter Berg > Up until The Kingdom, Berg had quietly been making his mark on the directorial front. Very Bad Things is an often overlooked, underrated black comedy, and Friday Night Lights is undoubtedly one of the finest sports films of all-time. However, in his foray into the action/drama (as opposed to the action/comedy buddy flick The Rundown), he stumbles over a few heavy-handed messages and a fairly insulting foundation: Jamie Foxx and his FBI crew land in Saudi Arabia to investigate a civilian bombing on international soil as if the Saudi themselves are absolutely incapable of such. This type of convenience in the script is downright silly, but it doesn’t stop there. The central conflict finds a magical solution at the buzzer, though Berg does add a couple of rather nice touches to make us pay attention. The Kingdom is not horrible, but it’s shallow and treads thinly on deep water that could have used some further exploration.