The Kingdom: "We Will Kill Them All"

“Watch your mouth. Don’t use those curse words!” Faris chastised the only Jewish member of the FBI investigative team as they surveyed the damage from a massive bombing and shooting attack at an American compound in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We were watching a 2007 film called “The Kingdom” and the action was fast and furious with bombs hitting SUVs and blood spurting out of maimed bodies.

Saudi Arabia is a tough place for any American, especially a Jew with passport stamps from three trips to Israel. The movie begins by showing how the Saud family became the absolute rulers in 1938, and how a group of about 10,000 royals live in baronial splendor as their citizens, half of whom have no rights, seethe. The film is about a realistic but fictional attack on an American compound, and the team of four FBI agents who come to try to solve the horrible crime.

They are hindered mightily at first by their minder Faris, the one who doesn’t like curse words. No, you can’t touch any evidence. No, you can’t go up on that roof where the bombers videotaped their awful deed. It takes a visit with a prince to give them any room at all to do their work. They aren’t supposed to be in the country at all, and a state department flack keeps trying to get them on a plane home.

All around them people are planning new bomb attacks and filling vests with explosives. One telling moment close to the end sums up the frustrating dead-end all of this hatred leads to: While our hero Jamie Fox promises his young son he will kill all of the terrorists, a dying bomber tells his young grandson they will kill all the infidels and make them leave forever.