Land of Bad (#518)


This is not a film for everyone. It is an old fashion military action thriller but a military world totally unfamiliar to me, with cameras thousands of miles away watching everything and someone thousands of miles from the action directing drones. Starring Russell Crowe as the drone operator, LAND OF BAD takes place in the Philippines where a special forces extraction team has been sent in to rescue a CIA agent who was captured and imprisoned by an insurgent group.  Things go awry for the mission in which Liam Hemsworth, dubbed “Airforce” and a last minute addition to the rescue team despite the fact that he has no experience in this kind of an operation, becomes the seemingly only survivor of the team, which is ambushed.  He’s being guided to safety via radio in Las Vegas by Crow, an undisciplined captain (whose 4th wife is expecting a baby), becoming the focus of the film as he compassionately but calmly runs the show.  One glitch after another occurs and there’s a lot of shooting and explosions and torture and some predictable happenings, but you will be pleased to know it does have a happy ending.  Crowe is a standout in the cast; the rest were adequate.  It was a bit long at just under two hours, but I didn’t get bored and I found it okay.  Only 56% of critics gave this one a thumbs up, but there were no audience ratings.  Lots of previews, ranging from a ballerina vampire to Russell Crowe again, and a couple of interesting ones that I can’t remember.

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