User Reviews

Straight forward action from start till finish, in a story about an inexperienced soldier (Liam Hemsworth) who has to rescue someone in a foreign enemy country, while Russel Crowe is guiding him through this enemy territory via drone cameras above, firing some missiles now and then, killing some bad guys.

The bad: this story has got some incredibly silly plot turns, so it cant be taken seriously. For example: a drone command centre cant be reached because the phone is off the hook, because the guys on duty are having a break and watching football and eating pizza. What the what?!!

The good: the action is okay. It's fast. It's big. It's loud. And it's reasonably realistic, with some nice explosions and lots of chases and attacks and even a few knife fights. It'll do for anyone into straight forward action movies.

What's kinda special about this movie is that they tried (and only partly succeeded) in making the leading actors look human, by letting them chitchat about all sorts of little things, like their favorite (vegan) food or candy and more of that sort of dribble. These supposedly witty dialogues do feel too artificially constructed and do not ring true to life...

Nothing extraordinary, but still enjoyable as a solid action spectacle, despite a few incredibly annoying credibility flaws.

If you're a pure action freak and you have absolutely no qualms about believability, feasibility, or realism you might get a kick out of this movie. Hemsworth was given a really lame script and he was asked to pretend that he's some sort of operator with absolutely no experience, yet he manages to be the hero nonetheless. It's a very cliche story, very poorly written by a hack writer who probably got $5,000 for the script. Somehow the project got two big stars, and got green lit. It was a fairly large production but the feasibility aspect of it was just ridiculous.

There are far better action films out there and the only saving grace about this film was Russell Crowe. He was great as usual, other than that better to take a pass.

I wasn't really expecting too much from this movie, from all the negativity and bad reviews, but I thought how bad could it actually be with Liam Hemsworth, Russell Crowe and Milo Ventimiglia in the line up.

And to be honest I was pleasantly surprised that Land of Bad, actually wasn't that Bad, some good solid performances from the actors playing the Delta Force team and from Russell Crowe my oh my, hasn't he put some weight on, need to get down the gym Russ.

Overall I think a pretty decent action movie with to be honest a bit of a duff title, and really does it really matter 3 Aussie actors are playing Americans, probably not.

Ok, so not a great film in the great scheme of films, but certainly an entertaining and a decently shot directed and acted one for a couple of hours,

Not a 10/10 imho, but certainly not a 1-5, I'd give it a solid 7/10.

Reviwers saying this movie is garbage.. dude, what are doing? Are you comparing it with born on the 4th of jult, platoon or that one with Michael j fox and sean penn (Casualties of war)?

It ain that deep but it sure as hell isnt some movie where the main character goes from rookie to super badass in the course of the whole movie.. he is a man after all, and that mary sue bs is only played out with female characters..

anyway,movie was great. Liked Milo since gilmore girls and heroes and im happy to see him getting major roles.. russel crowe, now old and obese, cant do no more action scenes but he is able to pull his role off perfectly hemsworth is good too as a rookie jtac that got dragged into the mission and is not really on the samel level compared to the delta boys.. but in the end, he makes it..

nicely done entertaining movie.

I saw Land of Bad, starring Liam Hemsworth-The Hunger Games movies, Expendables 2; Russell Crowe-Thor: Love and Thunder, The Man With the Iron Fists; Milo Ventimiglia-This is Us_tv, Heroes_tv and Luke Hemsworth-Westworld_tv, the Thor movies.

This is a military thriller about a special ops team on a rescue mission in the Philippines. Liam is the new man on the team led by Milo. Luke is another member of the team-FYI, he is also Liam's real life brother. Russell plays their eyes in the sky that controls any drone hits, keeps an eye on their positions and does any other kinds of surveillance that is needed. It's pretty much by the books from here, as far as these kinds of movies go. Things go wrong on their rescue, some of them get captured, some get killed, etc. There are lots of fighting and torture scenes as the team tries to make it back, and although it is entertaining,there is nothing really new here. Maybe it's because it was filmed in Australia and at least 3 of the actors are Australian so they probably based it on what they watched growing up.

It's rated R for strong bloody violence and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 50 minutes.

It would be alright to stream.

Land of Bad

SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I have a very large respect for the United States military. I have several family members that are either active duty or retired. I thank every one who chose to enter military service as the work they do is unparalleled in order to preserve the way of life I am able to choose. This work is dangerous. This work takes an enormous toll on the mental health of those who serve on front lines, or, as the film shows, the communication centers located safely within the continental United States. However, a different spin is introduced which links the teams in the field, with the teams at home.

The film takes on the controversial topic of the use of drones in order to fire ordinance into specific locations provided by, or confirmed by, the men and women in the field. Our main character, code named Playboy, starts out nervous, but hides behind the fact that his work with the drones will help keep everyone out of harm's way. He even goes on to say that if he has to fire his main weapon, then everyone is in trouble. The "reliance on too much technology" theme begins in earnest when Playboy's parachute almost doesn't deploy upon his jump.

Upon approaching the location reported to house an asset, other men arrive and viciously behead a woman in front of a man who clearly loves her. Before these men can also behead their child, the American team risks their lives to save him, thus giving away their presence and position. The use of drone strikes turn out to not be as helpful as promised as it takes too long (30 whole seconds) to reach the target allowing the men to fire RPGs at the team, leaving Playboy all by himself.

Technology continues to fail as he goes through one method of communication after another, as each breaks, to stay in contact with the communications captain in Las Vegas, Ranger, who works to keep him calm while he guides him to an extraction point. This time, the drone strikes become handy as they eliminate those who have pursued him, but it was not enough to allow the helicopter to land to save him.

The film goes on like this, continuing to promote the idea that there is too much reliance on drone warfare, as it takes the human factor out. The team leader still points out that a human being is killing other human beings, regardless of proximity. Another person puts forth the statement that he is better than the Americans because he is willing to look the person in the eye before he makes the decision to harm or kill that person. Yet, with edge of your seat action, the film insists on showing evidence of both sides of the argument.

Ranger represents the idea that the human factor is still essential as he, and his staff sergeant, are the only people Playboy can speak to, while alone in the jungle. But even the Americans on the AFB in Las Vegas don't seem to care much going so far as to inexplicably turn a phone's ringer off so they can watch a basketball game. The amount of anger I felt after watching the base's colonel's behavior cannot be expressed in words without profanity. His callousness paints quite the caricature of a 21st century military leader as he nearly gets people killed.

This review has been all over the place, but so was the movie. Technology is good, technology is bad, where's the human factor, etc. This gave me a lot to think about, especially with the events going on around the globe. War is hell, but making it simulate a video game scares me more.

Land of Bad is a refreshing action thriller in the vein of Tears of the Sun / Lone Survivor / 13 Hours.

A great cast. All bring their A-game. Great direction takes you in to the heart of the action and doesn't play it safe. The production value is fantastic and really takes you into how tactical warfare can be with with multiple teams in stretegic unison to complete the mission and bring everyone home safely.

As some of the other reviews confrim, there's nothing cheesy about Land of Bad - it respects the audience.

Ignore the silly reviews. You'll be gladly surprised. If you enjoy Seal Team / Special Forces action thrillers. Land of Bad is a 2hr ride you wont regreat. Enjoy!

This is a Hemsworth Family benefit starring the two less-well-known of the family, Liam and Luke. What - was Chris busy? And if that wasn't enough Australian for you, the great man Russell Crowe also stars as well!

'Land of Bad' reminds me of 'Behind Enemy Lines' and even 'Bat-21', with an operator stuck behind enemy lines after a mission goes wrong - so it's nothing you haven't seen before a time or two. In this case, there's a team of them; Liam Hemsworth is a USAF comms expert who liaises with UAV pilots back at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, and Luke is a Delta Force operator. Russell Crowe plays Eddie Grim, a UAV pilot with a healthy disdain for command authority, which has gotten him into trouble in the past. He does a good job with a role that's largely limited to him sitting in front of a screen, piloting the drone, mostly for overwatch. The two Hemsworth's and one Crowe are all very good in their roles. It's Crowe's performance that sets this movie apart from similar ones.

Spectacular action, but 'Land of Bad' is a very violent movie, including a disturbing beheading scene. No punches are pulled in these kinds of movies anymore, but even so...

The last hour is particularly tense. Obviously, a far-fetched plot, but I'm a firm believer in the adage that you don't watch movies like this for the plot. It's for explosions and gunfights and special operators doing their thing. It works.

Decent set of actors. Russell Crowe is pretty good. Hemsworth's character is completely shallow and acts like he's never been in the military.

It's obvious the writers of this movie didn't have any military advisors or they flat ignored them. If bad technical details of movies bug you, then you'll hate this one. Troops in contact and no one is paying attention...they're watching basketball. Troops missing...oh yeah, basketball. Conducting airstrikes...yup, basketball.

You'd think that after spending years making military movies, you wouldn't see this completely disrespectful nod - unfortunately, the drone service is the victim of this one. Ouch.