Land of Bad: At Least The Title is Fitting

Perhaps some of you may wonder why I've never given a true 1/10 review to any movie on this site. Allow me to explain. I grade movies like a teacher grades homework, so anything above a 9/10 is a grade of "A," anything greater than an 8/10 is a "B," and so on. So this means that if I were teaching a class and the movies I review happen to be my pupils, any score that falls below a 6/10 is a failing grade. I'm not a reactive reviewer who hands out 2/10 and 1/10 scores left and right based on my feelings, and I like to grade the movies I watch with a little more nuance, as I believe that while 10/10 movies are rare, true 1/10 movies are even more so, at least as far as mainstream titles go. I say this so that perhaps you will not be misled by the final grade for Netflix's relatively recently released action thriller Land of Bad, which I've posted at the bottom of this review, just like I do for all of my reviews. For all of its flaws, and believe me when I say that there are many, at least the makers of this movie got the title right, because this movie is a lot of things, and good is not one of them. I don't really know what to say about this movie that hasn't been said about every shallow military action thriller that's been written by an obviously inexperienced team. Nevertheless, I'm going to try my best to say something. It just might not be anything nice.

Land of Bad, a 2024 military-themed action thriller from Netflix, follows a group of Delta Force soldiers as they attempt to rescue a CIA spy being held captive in the Philippines. When the mission goes sideways, their only hope lies with Captain Eddie "Reaper" Grimm, whose MQ-9 Reaper drone is in the area.

I want to start by addressing a misgiving some of the college bros reading this will have - yes, I perfectly understand that sometimes, a shallow action movie is never going to try to be anything more than a shallow action movie. Some may see this as a reason to be more lenient towards movies like this. However, movies are an art form that I see as ultimately competing on a level playing field, and I see the complacency from audiences towards these types of movies as an excuse for studios to keep putting out subpar efforts. For example, disaster movies tend to hold to tropes that more or less render that particular genre completely, but there are exceptions to this rule - namely Twisters and to a lesser extent, Gerard Butler's 2020 comet thriller Greenland. I suppose that movies like this are probably always going to exist, but I don't like the lack of ambition on display here. Land of Bad has absolutely nothing meaningful to say about armed conflict and ironically enough is at its absolute worst when it tries to say something that matters.

Granted, the technical aspects of Land of Bad range anywhere from acceptable to momentarily great. Most of the movie is shot during the day and looks fine enough, but in the few nighttime sequences that are mostly frontloaded, the film briefly looks sublime when it can catch a silhouette against the dusk. But of course, it's Netflix, so this brief beauty doesn't last. It's almost like Netflix movies have a rule that they can't be anything more than visually mediocre. On the level of pacing, this movie's momentum can at times be almost non-existent. Even if some unexpected bursts of violence breathe some periodic momentum and life into the movie, good movies move, and I don't like how there are a lot of stretches in the narrative here that don't do anything to develop anything resembling an ever-evolving story in any way. The way this movie tells its story sounds very much like "and then....and then....and then...." This lack of story development also facilitates a frustrating lack of character development in Land of Bad. In fact, I don't think I ever even learned the names of the people on the Delta Force team, not that the movie ever gave me a reason to care.

This movie's unfortunate yet somehow mercifully few attempts to raise its stakes are forced and, to put it bluntly, pretty lame. As Land of Bad ran its course, it became apparent to me that the writers just simply ran out of ideas, not that their initial ideas were too much to write home about in the first place. A couple of plot points become forced, and the movie begins to grasp at straws to try and hold on to some semblance of momentum. Granted, the approach of the climax of Land of Bad made me sit up a little. This movie's final act is put on a timer, and I appreciate that someone had the sense of mind to make me and, if I'm reading the room right, other critics care about something the movie was doing. Also, there's one moment near the end of Land of Bad that snuck up on me and hit me with an unexpected tenderness. But that said, the bad just far outweighs the good here, and I just felt so dull and indifferent to everything that happened because this movie just didn't know how to make me care, and not even a little bit of sugar sprinkled on top of a mudpie can make it taste good.

At least the team behind naming Land of Bad captured the essence of a movie that adheres religiously to the conventions - shortcomings and all - of its genre but fails to excel in any way, shape, form, or fashion whatsoever. To add insult to injury, the movie even contains some half-hearted attempts at meaningful commentary on the ineffectiveness of military hierarchy that left a really bad taste in my mouth. I never cared about what happened to the characters in this movie either, because the movie didn't really seem to either. It's more concerned with overwhelmingly average setpieces than it is with fundamentals, and so even if it may never try to be high art, I wouldn't exactly call scribbles a drawing. This shallow film is a land of stagnation, a land of shallow characterization, a land of unambition, and yes, dear reader, a Land of Bad.

Land of Bad - 5/10

Psalm 144:1-2