LAND OF BAD - Mark Reviews Movies

Land of Bad, The Avenue

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | February 15, 2024

If there are any ideas to be found in Land of Bad, they come right at the top. After that, co-writer/director William Eubank's generic military actioner only has one goal: to show a lot of shooting, running, fighting, and explosions. The stunt team and visual effects crew get a good workout here, although it's all in service of going through the motions of a repetitive plot and string of action sequences.

The initial conceit is somewhat intriguing, at least. We meet a team of special operations soldiers, on their way to an anonymous territory in Southeast Asia to retrieve an undercover operative who has entrenched himself with a Russian arms dealer. That's the not the interesting part, obviously, and as the team members talk shop and joke around with the new guy on his first mission, it's also clear that most of these characters aren't going to provide much nuance or insight into matters, either.

No, the seemingly pertinent notion arises when Kinney (Liam Hemsworth), the rookie, and his comrades (including characters played by Milo Ventimiglia and the star's older brother Luke, who doesn't play a relative) discuss the state of modern warfare. Kinney has been assigned to the team to stay in communication with the pilots of a remote drone, controlled from an Air Force base just on the outskirts of Las Vegas. That vital eye in the sky will keep track of the squad, search for any hostile forces in their immediate area, and fire missiles on targets if necessary.

What happens, though, if this technology fails them? That's the question posed by sniper Bishop (Ricky Whittle), who finds the new guy's assertion that drones remove the "barbarism" of combat to be laughable. Blow up 50 people with a missile fired from a drone, or shoot that same number. The results are the same, but is Kinney, who spends most of the build-up to the mission on the radio or staring at a handheld monitor of the drone's cameras, ready to do the latter if the former option becomes unviable or impossible?

As it turns out, these questions don't actually matter to the plot, which depends on Kinney evading and fighting back against a seemingly infinite number of enemies with the aid of the drone, or the theme, which appears to be that running through gunfire and away from explosions can look really cool. Slow-motion shots of rifles discharging, bullets striking bad guys, and balls of flame erupting from rockets can be even neater still, apparently, given how frequently Eubank does that during the opening battle.

Following that firefight, Kinney ends up alone and has to find his way to a place where a rescue helicopter can save him. He's guided and aided by those drone pilots back in Nevada, and one of them, a no-nonsense-talking man known only as Reaper (Russell Crowe), is as patient with Kinney as he is irritated that no one else at the base takes their job seriously. Between the repeated scenes of close-calls and chases in the jungle, Reaper gets some equally clichéd scenes of being chewed out by superiors, calling them out on their shortcomings, and worrying about his pregnant wife, who has just gone into labor (The third act appears to forget this last detail, by the way).

In theory, the setup presents an opportunity for the filmmakers to concern themselves with and communicate logistics, geography, and other seemingly important elements to a mission such as this one. After doing so with the introductory sequence, though, Eubank and co-screenwriter David Frigerio allow Kinney to be taken by surprise, to run toward danger, and to be ambushed by maybe a couple dozen or more bad guys. It keeps happening in a way that comes across as being contrived for suspense or action, especially since Reaper and his co-pilot (played by Chika Ikogwe) are supposedly the best of the best to do this kind of work.

It's all pretty monotonous, too, which is the real problem beyond such inconsistencies. The third act of does change things a bit, since there's shooting and fighting in locations other than the jungle, but that's also for the worse. To describe the particulars of the climax might make it seem like joke, and watching a character ambling around grocery store and another not realizing how a make a phone call that properly explains the peril of a situation are definitely laughable (That doesn't even take into account what must be the sturdiest metal tub ever constructed). The obvious joke relating to the title won't be made here, because Land of Bad writes it itself.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products