Revenge and The Kingdom

“…those who have been wronged or think they have been wronged…they are always watching for an opportunity [for revenge].” (Aristotle 1382b) The Kingdom (2007) can be tied to On Rhetoric in many ways, one of the most prominent themes being revenge.

The Kingdom begins at a military base in Riad, Saudi Arabia where American families have gathered together at a softball game. Terrorists infiltrate the base using police uniforms and begin shooting the families. A man walks into the center of the field, claiming to be a friend but opens his vest, and blows up the compound. In response, a US FBI agent calls his closest friend in the US and asks him to come help with the devastation. As the call ends another explosion rips through the compound, killing the emergency workers and the survivors of the previous blast. When  a close-knit team of FBI agents learn of their comrade’s death  Agent Janet Mayes is overcome by emotion. “Let anger be [defined as] desire, accompanied by [mental and physical] distress, for apparent retaliation because of an apparent slight that was directed, without justification, against oneself or those near to one.” (p116) She is quickly reassured by the lead agent, who whispers in her ear.  In order to investigate the death of their friend they petition the US government to go to Saudi Arabia through much difficulty they convince the “princes” of the nation to allow them entrance. Once in the country they are met with constant hostility and constraint. The movie explores the complexity of the issue of western and eastern stereotypes with a helpful Saudi police captain aiding the team throughout the movie in the harsh contrast of an otherwise hostile culture. At the apex of the movie the team is scrambling to rescue a member of the team who is kidnapped. In this struggle many Saudi Arabians are killed, among them a younger boy and a grandfather. As the movie closes and the team is returning to the US one agent turns to the main character, Jaimie Foxx, and asked what he had whispered to the agent most affected by the death of the agent in the bombing at the beginning of the movie;  “I told her we’re going to kill them all.” Simultaneously the screen pans to the survivors of the FBI agents’ raid on the bomber, and the young grandson of the killed man and brother to the fallen youth whose mother asks him to tell her what his grandfather whispered to him before he died, the boy responds, “Don’t fear them, my child. We are going to kill them all.” As said by Aristotle, ”there must be some hope of being save from the cause of agony. And there is a sign of this: fear makes people inclined to deliberation, while no one deliberates about hopeless things.” (p130)

This movie explicitly demonstrates the sides of revenge described by Aristotle:  “they [wrong] those who have done many wrongs to others or the [same] kind of wrongs [as are] being done to them; for it almost seems to be no wrong when someone is wronged in the way he himself is in the habit of wronging others.” (p95). As the movie progresses, the viewer is led to feel that the actions of the FBI agents are justified, “he had to do some few unjust things in order to do many just ones.”;  “and a kind of pleasure follows all experience of anger from the hope of getting retaliation.”; “[people are calm] when they think that [their victims] will not perceive who is the cause of their suffering and that it is retribution for what they have suffered; anger is a personal thing…” (pp 96, 116, 123) The ending scene is a startling revelation that while the viewer had vilified the bomber and believed violence was a proper response to the terrorist’s violence, perhaps the bomber’s motives were  as justified; and that the actions of one generation breed the actions of the next, “for through love of honor” the next generation, “cannot put up with being belittle but become indignant if they think they are done a wrong.” (p149) “Foolish he who after killing the father leaves behind the son.” (Clement of Alexandria p105)

Works Cited:

The Kingdom. Dir. Peter Berg. Perf. Jamie Foxx, Ashraf Barhom, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Kyle Chandler, Richard Jenkins, Jeremy Piven, Ali Suliman. Universal Pictures, 2007. DVD.

Aristotle, and George Alexander Kennedy. Aristotle on Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. New York: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.