There are two heroes in the frustrating military actioner \u201cLand of Bad,\u201d and one of them\u2019s more convincing than the other. During a hostage extraction mission gone bad, both heroes fight the kind of terrorists who behead a hostage in an establishing scene and then later philosophize about the real difference between us and them (it\u2019s a doozy).<\/p>\n
\u201cLand of Bad\u201d is most compelling when it sticks to hero #1, the capable but inexperienced Air Force Sergeant J.J. \u201cPlayboy\u201d Kinney (Liam Hemsworth). Hemsworth\u2019s a believable man of action, thanks in no small part to strong action choreography and filmmaking. His co-star, Russell Crowe, is no slouch either, even though it is harder to appreciate his performance given his irritating role as hero #2. Crowe plays Captain Eddie \u201cReaper\u201d Grimm, the socially awkward, but professionally adept drone pilot who tries to guide Kinney away from terrorists and missiles, and then eventually towards rescue. <\/p>\n
Crowe\u2019s most endearing when he\u2019s staring wide-eyed at mood-lit banks of computer monitors, relaying and extrapolating information with his supportive wing-lady, Staff Sergeant Nia Branson (Chika Ikogwe). Grimm\u2019s a lot less charming when he\u2019s mostly explicitly making the movie\u2019s big bathetic point, all about the military\u2019s failure to support capable, dedicated professionals like Grimm, who has to fight up-hill to be taken seriously. \u201cLand of Bad\u201d may sell itself as a post-\u201cBlack Hawk Down\u201d rescue mission thriller, but it\u2019s too often a baggy dramatized lecture about what\u2019s really wrong with the American military and modern warfare. <\/p>\n
As Kinney\u2019s handler, Grimm guides Hemsworth\u2019s overwhelmed, but capable soldier while he shoots, climbs, and wades through enemy territory in search of a high priority hostage. The prisoner in question is a CIA spy who\u2019s been gathering intelligence on a dangerous Russian arms dealer. None of that matters once Kinney\u2019s team engages with their bloodthirsty enemies, who, according to some introductory on-screen narration, are among \u201cthe most violent extremist groups in Southern Asia.\u201d <\/p>\n
The makers of \u201cLand of Bad\u201d mostly reduce their movie\u2019s antagonists to generic obstacles for Kinney, except for a few key scenes that strain to establish why they\u2019re actually the worst. These bad guys (briefly) revel in their psychopathy, torturing and executing their prisoners in a \u201cSaw\u201d-looking cave prison. \u201cI look a man in the eye and I make my choice intimate,\u201d one torture-prone terrorist boasts, moments after Kinney insists, \u201cThat\u2019s not the conversation we should be having right now.\u201d <\/p>\n
So when is the right time? Maybe not in \u201cLand of Bad,\u201d where hero #1 rarely slows down long enough to explain himself while hero #2 should probably follow suit. Grimm\u2019s a neurotic mess, an energy-drink fueled loner who takes great umbrage with snotty (and notably younger) Colonel Virgil Packett, played by Daniel MacPherson. Some pains are taken to humanize Grimm, mostly during for-the-cheap-seats comedic asides about how ignoble, but also down-to-earth he is. <\/p>\n
Grimm\u2019s particular about his work chair. He makes a big to do about Keurig-style coffee pods and is painfully sincere when he tells Branson that a wedding is, \u201cprobably the greatest social ritual that humanity has.\u201d Grimm\u2019s also the only one who can bring Kinney back safe, a rote characterization that\u2019s mainly unbearable given how plodding and plentiful Grimm\u2019s scenes are. Why is there so much of hero #2 in this movie, or really, why do we have to know so much about him in order for his rapport with hero #1 to matter? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are two heroes in the frustrating military actioner \u201cLand of Bad,\u201d and one of them\u2019s more convincing than the other. During a hostage extraction mission gone bad, both heroes fight the kind of terrorists who behead a hostage in an establishing scene and then later philosophize about the real difference between us and them …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[36,37,54],"class_list":["post-1329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-movies","tag-action","tag-thriller","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}