PREMISE
An Army Special Forces team is ambushed, and their hope lies with Air Force personnel who guide them through a brutal 48-hour battle.
THE GOOD STUFF
LIAM HEMSWORTH- There’s been kind of this waiting period for Hemsworth to actually do leading man s*** in a major film given that he has all of the physical traits that seem to be required when making “the next big thing”. This is not a major film, and yet he is clearly showing that he is capable of leading-man-action-guy stuff. Finally. He is perfectly cast as being the baby-faced rookie in a quintet of battle-tested soldiers. The human moments tend to show out for him in this film, and he’s extremely likable and charismatic for the first time ever. Is he an action star? Not yet. But at least he’s shown himself as a guy that can do the job when called upon.
MILO- At kind of the opposite end of the action star spectrum we shockingly have Milo Ventimiglia. He is older, physically smaller, and given a lot less to do in contrast to Hemsworth in this movie by far. And yet somehow he comes away from this having the most ferocious performance in this movie. Ventimiglia has an awfully wide range of things that he can do and characters that he can portray. He was quite fun to watch in this film and perhaps was the most interesting character throughout.
THE BAD STUFF
CROWE- It’s not that Crowe’s performance was bad. The man has not ever (AND I REPEAT NOT EVER) had a bad performance. But he has had his fair assessment of boring/bad characters. His back-and-forth with Hemsworth throughout the film is very enjoyable. Had it been left at that, this movie would be way better than what it already is. Unfortunately, this character has a lot of backstory that is important that we don’t get to see….so it’s explained to us through the dialogue in a very common “real people wouldn’t talk this way” kind of ordeal. He’s good, but the character feels a bit underutilized.
THE UGLY STUFF
THE 3RD ACT- In just furthering the point about the Russell Crowe character backstory problem, this third act has a very jarring sequence in the middle of the climax of the movie where we’re switching back and forth between very intense war sequences and the Crowe character shopping for fish. No joke. He’s just shopping for fish and then we’re cutting back to people getting shot up and beat to death. It’s a bizarre sequence that leads to a very underwhelming climax and it’s really a shame too, because the film does almost everything else right as far as the third act is concerned.
**************
In my opinion, there are three types of war films:
*Films that speak to the psychology of a soldier and how it changes because of their experiences in war…(THE HURT LOCKER, WE WERE SOLDIERS, PLATOON)
*Films that speak to how governmental systems/politics fail soldiers when they need help the most (FULL METAL JACKET, THE COVENANT, BORN ON THE 4TH OF JULY)
*Movies about finishing one particular mission. (SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, BLACK HAWK DOWN… And this)
Am I comparing LAND OF BAD to any of the classic war flicks? Of course not. But it does do the job it advertises itself to do. When it comes to war movies that involve completing a mission the intensity tends to be way higher than anything else.
These types of war movies tend to be on the action side and because of that, I do believe this is the easiest one to get wrong. LAND OF BAD doesn’t get it wrong, it just gets weird at times. Ultimately it’s engaging from beginning to end, it’s the only good movie I’ve seen in February so far, and it might be the best movie of the year so far.
Yes, I know it’s only February, but this will obviously change. But I got to call it like I see it.
LAND OF BAD is in theaters now
