‘Land of Bad’ movie review: Russell Crowe has a blast in this mostly-engaging actioner

A still from ‘Land of Bad’ 
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Though almost every film industry across the globe has its share of war films — be it as a sign of anti-war, propaganda or even a documentary — Hollywood, unsurprisingly, takes a bigger piece of that pie chart. While the country’s take on war and the ones it has taken upon itself is a contentious topic, it’s no wonder that they are the forerunners when it comes to employing cutting-edge technology in modern warfare. This is the theme of Land of Bad, which does a neat job of capturing how human brains and tech brawns are redefining the art of combat.

Like many films in the genre, Land of Bad’s plot is simple; lives are at stake, good soldier have the back of their peers, and of course, there’s going to be a lot of shooting and explosions. Filmmaker William Eubank narrates how two men, connected digitally, are fighting a battle with expertise that’s unique to each other. Sergeant JJ “Playboy” Kinney (Liam Hemsworth) is out on a mission in the Philippines with comparatively seasoned troopers, and thousands of miles away, Captain Eddie “Reaper” Grimm (a fantastic Russell Crowe) is manoeuvring a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper that can not only precisely rain missiles on targets but also doubles up as the soldiers’ eye from the sky to guide them through treacherous terrain. When the mission goes haywire and the team is ambushed, it’s up to the new kid in the team and the experienced pilot working from Las Vegas to save the team.

The entire film is mounted on the camaraderie JJ and Eddie form over two days and how, despite never sharing screen space, they pull off a mission. The film is in its prime form when it concentrates on the ‘buddy-cop’ relationship between the duo; a rookie who needs to prove his mettle among experienced team members and a seasoned pilot who can even rattle his superiors. Apart from the amazing action set pieces, it is the conversations between the two men that humanise those representing factions behind a uniform. We eventually learn that JJ is a loner while Eddie has three ex-wives and eight children… with a new one coming soon with his fourth wife. The latter jokes about his current wife being a vegan putting a chuckle on the otherwise shell-shocked JJ’s face, who promises to meet Eddie for a drink once he knows that their hometowns are close by.

What’s as good as this bromance, if not even better, are the action sequences. After losing count of the headshots in the film, all I could do was try to fathom the carnage that unfolded. If the cavalry cannot handle the heat, all that Eddie has to do is lock on a target and press a trigger for the unmanned drone to drop a bomb, decimating everything and paving a path for JJ to progress. When the ammo runs out, the characters pull out knives and when that’s not around, things get old school as they sucker-punch their way out of trouble.

Russell Crowe in a still from ‘Land of Bad’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

Liam Hemsworth is apt as the inexperienced yet ready-to-step-up seargent and his team of troopers, which also includes his brother Luke Hemsworth, do the needful. But it’s the veteran Crowe who steals the show. After his heyday, it’s great fun to see Crowe epitomise an array of personas in B-movies like Poker Face and The Pope’s Exorcist, and Land of Bad is yet another addition to the list. It’s almost as if you can hear his character Maximus from Gladiator shouting, “Are you not entertained?”

But, like the missiles in the high-flying drones, what goes up must come down… and so does the film. Apart from easily dispensable antagonists, the narrative also tends to get tedious when JJ gets caught, and that happens twice. After the first contact with the enemies followed by a failed evac mission, the film gets repetitive with its tropes, and the last leg, which involves torture sequences, doesn’t really add much to the grand scheme of things when you know how it’s going to end.