Not unlike its lurking fishmen, 2020’s Underwater has floated around the discussion of underrated modern horror movies, thanks to its sleek propulsive update to deep-sea creature features. With Land of Bad, director William Eubank trades ocean-floor terror for jungle thrills, jumping from horror to gritty tactical action in his latest project. Despite his modest budget, Eubank delivers a taut adrenaline rush of spec ops survival carried by performances and style punching way above expectations. Just get past that unfortunate title first.
Co-written by Eubank and David Frigerio, Land of Bad harkens back to war films like Bat*21 (1988) and Behind Enemy Lines (2001), pairing Liam Hemsworth — operating in the harsh terrain of the Philippines — with Russell Crowe, hundreds of miles away in Las Vegas, providing drone support. As Sergeant “Playboy” Kinney, Liam can’t help but evoke his brother Chris’s Extraction films, although Land of Bad aims for a more desperate Lone Survivor-esque endurance rather than stylishly choreographed action. Crowe’s Captain “Reaper” Grimm brings a grounding, abrasive, human facet to the film as the driven, dutiful drone pilot on a base whose unit is more concerned with March Madness than with the life-and-death mayhem that breaks out halfway around the world. Reaper watches over the mission with his co-pilot, Branson (Chika Ikogwe), their sincere conviction and bond injecting what otherwise might seem like a boilerplate war actioner with compelling personality. The first act of Land of Bad finds an uneven balance between overly cliched operative banter and the intriguing dynamic of drone support; throughout the jungle trekking and mission site recon, Milo Ventimiglia, as team leader “Sugar,” provides a bright spot with his usual rugged intensity. Alongside Crowe, he ends up being Land of Bad’s most surprising highlight, revealing an action-star presence and physicality that one might not expect from the Heroes and This Is Us lead.
Once the mission to rescue a captured asset goes sideways in joltingly violent fashion, Eubank finds his footing and Land of Bad erupts into a showcase of technical prowess, efficient action craftsmanship, and unrelenting momentum. Gradual builds of cornered tension give way to blistering chaos, never stopping for respite, as another threat or obstacle always looms on the horizon. Practical explosions sear the screen as the Delta Force’s rescue op becomes a Black Hawk Down-style siege, until Kinney finds himself outnumbered, outgunned, and hunted through the wilderness, with only Reaper and Branson providing dwindling airstrikes and intel across crackling comms. Grimy and exhausted, Hemsworth utterly sells the grueling pursuit and firefight suspense, while Eubank places his star in set pieces that stretch the film’s modest budget to achieve a level of carnage more akin to Bayhem than to what Land of Bad’s ilk usually pulls off. With Eubank behind the camera and Hemsworth and Ventimiglia onscreen, the close-quarters fights achieve a grungy and nasty edge-of-seat viciousness not often touched by the subgenre. All the while, tensions flair between Crowe’s fraught support and the rest of the base’s detached, uncaring annoyance.
The final act brings Eubank’s horror background to the fore, transforming yet again from man-on-the-run action to a captured hellhole nightmare bathed in decaying hues and crimson stains. Grisly bloodshed and shadowy escapes contrast with the disorienting normalcy of a dismissed Reaper’s grocery shopping back home; inquiries about artisanal cheese versus gut stabs and torture while an air-strike ticking clock hangs over the dual plots. In a way, the intensity does fizzle out after the relentless jungle action that came before, but the audacious tonal swing and claustrophobic war-horror ensure that Land of Bad ends on a distinctly gripping note.
From sci-fi mystery to deep-sea disaster horror to found footage and now frantic military action, Eubank continues to be a thrillingly versatile director. At once familiar and ferocious, cliched and chaotic, Land of Bad embraces well-trodden personalities and plot threads, and executes them with confidence, brutality and flair. Genre fans will be satisfied, and others might just be surprised by this taut slice of action cinema.
Photo courtesy of The Avenue
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