The year 2024 started with a series of Hollywood flops. At least, I had hopes from the movie, The Bricklayer starring Aaron Eckhart. But, when I sat down to watch it, I was disappointed that a decent storyline can be trashed with a poor script, acting, and direction. Frankly, I wasn’t expecting much from the movie Land of Bad aside from Russell Crowe. Surprisingly, this movie held its bar high throughout the story with good acting, script, and direction. It’s a typical William Eubank movie where the script doesn’t disappoint and actors are allowed to do their job.
The movie Land of Bad has the same high tension that we experienced in the movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi and has the same thrill of the 2001 John Moore’s movie Behind Enemy Lines. The reason why I’m bringing these two movies for comparison is because Hollywood in the last decade seems to be losing the grip of reality with comic book action hero movies. This movie is a decent reminder that action can be repacked the same way they used to do a decade ago and we don’t need to get used to the dumb actions portrayed in a comic book adaptation.
The character of Kinney (played by Liam Hemsworth) is written such a way that it swings from one side close to that of John Krasinski in the movie 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi and that of Owen Wilson in the movie Behind Enemy Lines on another side. But, the disappointment is only in the ease of doing things. The tension that was portrayed in the Behind Enemy Lines is missing but to an extent you can dig to find it if you’re bored of watching Avengers style movies.
The best aspect is the style of William Eubank direction where he does not miss delivering on holding the script to the very end, something similar to what he had done in the 2014 movie The Signal. Though it might not be the most apt comparison here, unfortunately I can only remember his style from that movie as far as my memory goes.
The weaker aspects in the movie still persist owing to its Hollywood style war crime drama where Americans are portrayed as saviors of the planet. It’s not very annoying as we had the luxury of watching it in the movie Eye in the Sky where drone attacks are in fact a mere video game for the heroes. On the contrary, Russelle Crowe does bring his charm and makes it a more bearable watch for the runtime of the movie. And, if you remove him from the script, the movie has little or no meaning. The coordination between the combat team and the guys in the chair is what makes this movie an enjoyable watch.