Explosive
Summary
Don’t let the bizarre title fool you, Land of Bad is a cracking military action movie with Russell Crowe at his scene stealing best and some truly spectacular action scenes.
Plot: When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival.
Review: I hadn’t even watched any trailers to Land of Bad before going into it, so I had no idea what to expect from it. I knew it was a “young soldier is trapped behind enemy lines” tale and I absolutely love those kinds of movies. I have to be honest, but this movie blew me away. There are several set-pieces where I actually said “wow” or “holy shit” out loud and I can’t remember the last time I said that.
The story may not be a game changer but by God did it deliver in the execution; this is the kind of movie like BAT 21 which I never thought we would see again. This is also a hard R with some graphic violence, but it only adds to the intensity of the story.
It builds up for the first 20-30 minutes establishing the characters and situations with Russell Crowe damn near stealing the show as the father figure Reaper who guides the drones while Kinney (Liam Hemsworth) tries to evade his enemies and escape to safety. I love their relationship and Reaper is such an appealing character where you just can’t help but love him every moment he is on screen.
The film has a few nice heartfelt and humorous moments and I liked how Kinney is wet behind the ears and terrified, but he has to find the courage to survive. Hemsworth plays the role to perfection where he is forced to become as vicious as his enemies.
Sylvester Stallone said the other day that he thinks Ryan Gosling should play Rambo in a reboot, which I personally think is a terrible idea. Rambo is Stallone and vice versa. I can’t imagine seeing anyone else in the role, however if we did have to have a reboot, I would maybe cast Milo Ventimiglia (who played Rocky’s son) mostly because he looks like Stallone at times and this movie proves he certainly has the chops in the action scenes. But please just don’t reboot Rambo. Let it be.
Anyway, Land of Bad like so many movies today does go on a little longer that it needs to and could have been trimmed by a few minutes, but it’s certainly never dull and as I said the action scenes are truly spectacular. We even get a few fight scenes towards the end, but the sheer number of massive explosions and near constant shoot-outs makes this a cracking action picture.
I see this has an overall rating of 2.5 stars on Rotten Tomatoes which is one of the reasons I have never applied for accreditation on there. If you don’t like this movie then you simply don’t like action movies.
Overall, Land of Bad is surprisingly awesome with some incredible action scenes and a scene stealing turn from Russell Crowe. If you get the chance to see it on the big screen then do so as you won’t regret it.
