Land of Bad is a whole lot of good

This week, Mrs. Average Dude and I popped in to see Land of Bad. But first off, I have to apologize for offering you no review last week. I was kind of focused on a little Sunday contest we all watched. It was, I’ve heard, the most watched tv show ever. And even though we experienced tragedy at the victory parade, it’s still a fantastic time to be a Chief’s fan. And it was just luck that there really wasn’t anything that looked worthy of review coming out. Thanks for understanding.

(Not too) hard choices

This week, however, there were at least three new shows at my local moviehaus that deserved consideration. There was Bob Marley: One Love. I still want to see that. Marley is a legend that I feel like I need to know more about. Seeing the bio-pic and also doing the accompanying research to see if Hollywood gets it right will take time, and I want to do it right.

Also released was the new Sony/Marvel Spider-man spin-off, Madame Web,. Why the studio decided that Valentine’s Day was a good time to release it is anyone’s guess. The advanced word on it was “train wreck of East Palestine, Ohio proportions”. I consider myself something of a comic book character fount of knowledge, and I barely knew of the character Madame Web. All other sources have reviewed this movie and I think they’ve exhausted all negative adjectives.

Are you not entertained?

Then there is Land of Bad, starring Liam Hemsworth and Russell Crowe. It feels wrong somehow to give Gladiator second billing. He’s Gladiator. He’s the Bulldog of Bergen. He’s Zeus, Jack Aubrey and Jor-el. It’s nice to see him play a pivotal role in Land of Bad. But he clearly wasn’t THE star. Crowe isn’t really in ‘action movie’ shape these days. And Land of Bad is most definitely an action thriller.

Land of Bad is the story of Sgt JJ Kinney, a young, fresh-faced Air Force JTAC soldier. Think Special Forces with a missile drone overwatch. Crowe is the eyes in the sky drone pilot, slamming Monster energy drinks and sporting a golf glove to protect his stick hand. Sgt Kinney gets imbedded with three campaign-hardened bush soldiers on a mission to extract one of their own who was captured by a well-funded personal army in the Philippines. Pretty standard popcorn movie stuff.

It’s nigh impossible for Hollywood to find a new angle to the modern era jungle soldier flick. And to this movie’s credit, it didn’t even try. There were no over-the-top action sequences, no stretches of the imagination. What Land of Bad delivered was a taught, well-paced movie full of jungle action that was wholey believeable. Add just enough high-tech drama and a pinch of human conflict. When all the elements are thrown into the pot and doled out expertly, the dish is quite tasty, definitely served piping hot.

Mike Drop

Land of Bad is a fantastic example of how the right actors, combined with the right director, can take an overtold premise and make it something very entertaining. Sure, we need at least adequate writing. But movies like John Wick show us that, with the right actors and the right director, dialog can be ordinary…or even non-existant. JW4 was 3 hours long. John had 103 lines composed of 484 words total. And get this…Jorma Tommila in Sisu (reviewed here) had only 5 lines the entire movie. My point is made.

Cred where cred is due

At this point, I’m willing to give acting cred to Liam Hemsworth. Yes, he’s nearly as buff as his better known sibling and not nearly as built out as his lesser known sibling (Luke, who is also in this film). But I’ve seen enough of his acting (Hunger Games, to be specific) to award him more than female eye candy status. It took Brad Pitt’s performance in 12 Monkeys to get that nod from me.

Russell Crowe was excellent in a supporting role. I’ve yet to see a movie of his that he just phones in, and that’s the mark of a consumate professional.

This is the first movie directed by William Eubank that I’ve ever seen. His IMDB is fairly light, with little that I’ve even heard of. But I won’t be shy about seeing his work in the future.

So, let’s check off some boxes here: Above average casting in all prominent roles: CHECK. Well-paced action thriller story: CHECK. Very believeable scenes with zero over-the-top action sequences: CHECK. Promising young director: CHECK. I am very happy to give Land of Bad a very deserved 4.1 of 5. See it with confidence and spring for the medium popcorn, because this movie will keep you chomping in more ways than one.

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