Debbie Schlussel: Who is Funding "The Kingdom"?: Hollywood Puts Out a Soft-on-Saudis Terrorism Flick
On September 28, 2007, barely two weeks after the sixth anniversary of 9/11--in which more than 75% of the perpetrators were Saudis, Universal Pictures will release, "The Kingdom." (Film website, with trailer, here.)
Starring Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman (who should have done us a favor and retired after his "Silver Spoons" gig with Ricky Schroeder) as FBI counterterrorism agents, the movie is about an FBI team's travails in Saudi Arabia, investigating a terrorist attack on Americans and trying to hunt down the terrorist mastermind behind it before he commits further attacks.
While the movie sends initially anti-Saudi, it ends up that a kindly Saudi police captain is the one who helps the Americans and saves the day. Like that has EVER happened or WOULD EVER happen. When, in real life, in May 2003, housing compounds holding mostly Americans in Saudi Arabia were blown up by suicide car bombs, the Saudis were completely uncooperative in our investigations.
Sorry, but in real life the Saudis usually are working hand-in-hand with the terrorists. Then, we hear the usual reports that the Saudis killed the terrorists in hot pursuit (which either never really happened or happened because the Saudis don't want the terrorists to tell us how the Saudis funded and aided them).
The press materials sent out by the studio say:
But when a sympathetic Saudi police captain helps them navigate Riyadh politics and investigate the true cause of the attack, Fleury finds an unexpected comrade-in-arms. In their lightning fast attempt to crack the case, the partners' search leads them straight to the killers' front door. Now in a fight for their own lives, two teams on opposite sides of the war on terror won't stop until justice is found in THE KINGDOM.
The question that should be asked here is obvious: Who is funding this movie? How much Saudi or Muslim money is going into this propaganda film? Would love to know, but the credits don't tell you that kind of info. What they do show is that two Saudis, Yamen Al-Hajjar and Ahmed Al-Ibrahim (who also co-stars in the movie), are listed as consultants on Arabic, Islam, and Saudi Arabia. Al-Hajjar is a Saudi National who is a student at Boston University and says he will return to the Kingdon of Saudi Arabia after graduation to work for Saudi Aramco oil company. I'm sure they're not biased at all in favor of their native land and "peaceful" religion.
As I noted last year, Producer/Writer Michael Mann's last major motion picture, "Miami Vice" featured a drug dealer wearing an Israeli Army T-shirt. Sounds like his mind is pan-Islamist occupied territory.
Here's the full synopsis of the movie, as provided by Universal:
Director Peter Berg, who blisteringly reinterpreted the high-school sports drama with the celebrated Friday Night Lights, producer Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider, The Aviator, Miami Vice), and producer Scott Stuber (You, Me and Dupree, The Break-Up) join Oscar winner Jamie Foxx in a timely thriller about the explosive clash that happens when Middle East meets West: THE KINGDOM.Foxx stars as whip-smart FBI Special Agent Ronald Fleury, who has just received the assignment of his career: assemble an elite team (played by Jennifer Garner, Oscar winner Chris Cooper and Jason Bateman) and go to Riyadh to hunt down and capture the terrorist mastermind behind a deadly attack on Americans working in Saudi Arabia. The feds have only one week to infiltrate and cripple a cell bent on jihad to western society.
No training could prepare Fleury and his team for the disorienting culture shock they face once inside this scorching foreign land--a byzantine maze in which they find profiteering politicians funding violent insurgents. Bound by handlers who refuse to play ball with the U.S., the agents quickly find the local law enforcement more hindrance than help and soon grow uncertain of anybody's allegiance.
But when a sympathetic Saudi police captain helps them navigate Riyadh politics and investigate the true cause of the attack, Fleury finds an unexpected comrade-in-arms. In their lightning fast attempt to crack the case, the partners' search leads them straight to the killers' front door. Now in a fight for their own lives, two teams on opposite sides of the war on terror won't stop until justice is found in THE KINGDOM.
Riiiight.
And by the way, in real life, the FBI agents we sent to Saudi Arabia weren't exactly prize material either. One of them, Gamal Abdel-Hafiz was the subject of multiple complaints for refusing to wiretap and investigate Muslim terrorists, including Sami Al-Arian, and was fired, then rehired, after lying to the FBI regarding an insurance scam in which his ex-wife said he was involved.
He and his FBI boss in Riyadh, Wilfred Rattigan--who converted to Islam, and went on the Hajj, leaving the FBI offices in Riyadh abandoned, admitted to leaving a backlog of important terrorism and 9/11-related documents that had not been translated, copied, or scanned. Some of the documents were also apparently shredded before ever being reviewed, according to some reports.
Posted by Debbie on February 12, 2007 11:01 AM to Debbie Schlussel