The Kingdom

Jamie Foxx plays yet another only-in-the-movies maverick FBI agent, this time wangling permission for his so-called elite team (Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper, Jason Bateman) to investigate a terrorist bombing at an American compound in Saudi Arabia. It might have made a good culture-clash police procedural, but Matthew Michael Carnahan’s script eschews nuance, marking time impatiently until Foxx et al. can drop all this CSI hooey and grab their M-16s to start blowing stuff up. (The sight of a gun-toting babe like Garner in sexy camouflage fatigues shooting up the streets of Riyadh seems almost perversely calculated to offend Muslims in general, and Saudis in particular.) Actor Peter Berg directs with the flailing fervor he usually displays when he steps behind the camera (Very Bad Things, The Rundown).