The Kingdom/Jarhead (DVD)

Double bill featuring movies that focus on America's recent involvement in foreign countries. In 'The Kingdom' (2007), when a terrorist bomb detonates inside a Western housing compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an international incident is ignited. While diplomats slowly debate equations of territorialism, FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) quickly assembles an elite team and negotiates a secret five-day trip into Saudi Arabia to locate the madman behind the bombing. Upon landing in the desert kingdom, however, Fleury and his team discover Saudi authorities suspicious and unwelcoming of American interlopers into what they consider a local matter. Hamstrung by protocol, and with the clock ticking on their five days, the FBI agents find their expertise worthless without the trust of their Saudi counterparts who want to locate the terrorist in their homeland on their own terms. Fleury's crew finds a like-minded partner in Saudi Police Captain Al-Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom), who helps them navigate royal politics and unlock the secrets of the crime scene and the workings of an extremist, hell bent on further destruction. 'Jarhead' (2006) is an adaptation of former Marine Anthony Swofford's Gulf War memoir. Young recruit Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) joins up with the US Marines (nicknamed 'Jarheads' because of their distinctive haircuts) on the eve of the 1990 Gulf War. After a brutal spell in boot camp, during which Swofford and his fellow recruits are systematically geared up for the conflict, the Marines are dispatched to the deserts of the Persian Gulf to take part in a war that sees them required to do very little in the way of fighting. Bored and frustrated in the middle of nowhere, the young soldiers resort to a macabre sense of humour as they wait for the war to happen to them.