Land of Bad (2024) Review!!

Synopsis – When a Delta Force team is ambushed in enemy territory, a rookie officer (Liam Hemsworth) refuses to abandon them. Their only hope lies with an Air Force drone pilot (Russell Crowe) as the eyes in the sky during a brutal 48-hour battle for survival.

My Take – At this point the concept of a solider stranded in enemy territory trying to make it back is a sub-genre in itself, and upon first glance, this modern-day, drone-driven riff seems to be offering the same kind of beats.

But for all its familiar aspects, this latest from director William Eubank (The Signal, Underwater) does have a few things going, mainly its no-holds-barred action approach from beginning to end.

Yes, the plot is conventional, but the narrative is lean and stays straightforward, and the dialogue contains some welcome wit, however, most importantly it has enough gunfire and explosions to satisfy most action fans.

Resulting in a fairly decent and engaging action flick with some very well crafted sequences and suspense, that is somewhere on the lines what it would like if director Michael Bay (Transformers, Bad Boys) ever faced budgetary restraints. By jumping straight into its story right from the first scene, this one is a no-nonsense a thriller as you can get.

It helps that the film is bolstered by the presence of not one but two Hemsworth brothers (nope, the ever charming Chris isn’t one of them) and Oscar winner Russell Crowe, who absolutely steals the show despite spending most of the film sitting in a chair, staring at a screen and strategizing ops with the help of a drone.

The story follows Sergeant JJ “Playboy” Kinney (Liam Hemsworth), a rookie Air Force Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) who is assigned at the last minute to accompany an elite Delta Force team as it infiltrates enemy territory in the Philippines to rescue a captured CIA asset. Though Kinney initially finds himself fielding jabs from his team’s more experienced soldiers, Sugar (Milo Ventimiglia), Abel (Luke Hemsworth), and Bishop (Ricky Whittle). But things quickly take a turn for the worse when the team is suddenly caught up in a dangerous attack from multiple sides that leaves Kinney stranded and alone.

His only constant source of aid comes in the form of Captain Eddie “Reaper” Grimm (Russell Crowe), a US Air Force drone pilot and his aid Staff Sergeant Nia Branson (Chika Ikogwe) who monitor Kinney’s progress through his drone’s cameras and communicates with him from a base in Las Vegas. Through Kinney’s headset, Reaper bonds with the young JTAC and does his best to keep him as calm as possible. However, the longer that he remains stranded, the more complicated rescuing him becomes.

There’s little backstory about any of the soldiers as the screenplay by director Eubank and co-writer David Frigerio dives right into the bare bones story. The entire film is mounted on the camaraderie Kinney 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. What’s as good as this bromance, if not even better, are the action sequences.

Here, director Eubank stages the combat scenes with impressive skill and all we can do is try to fathom the carnage that unfolded. That’s particularly true of the film’s inciting shootout, which is kicked off by a horrifying act of brutality and only grows more and more alarming the worse things get for Kinney, Sugar, Abel, and Bishop.

And 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 Kinney to progress.

Sure, the film’s script, spends part of its final third trying to address the unavoidable but unnerving political vagueness of its story by throwing out a handful of cringe-worthy, under baked references to real-world events, including torture sequences, doesn’t really add much to the grand scheme of things, but thanks to its excellent camerawork that mixes handheld, drones, and steady shots, this never feels as cheap as some of the ’80s films it emulates.

Performances wise, Liam Hemsworth is apt as the inexperienced yet ready-to-step-up sergeant and does a good job balancing his character’s action film cred with a realistic vulnerability. Milo Ventimiglia, Ricky Whittle, and Luke Hemsworth embody their tough-guy characters well.

But it’s the veteran Russell Crowe who steals the show. Despite staring mostly in mid-budget thrillers, Crowe continues to remind the value of his charisma and star power, all the while sharing easy chemistry with the very likable Chika Ikogwe. He fills his character with relatable frustration that it never feels like a chore when director Eubank cuts away from Kinney’s action-packed odyssey and back to him. On the whole, ‘Land of Bad’ is a decent no-nonsense thriller filled with extraordinary action film thrills.