Warning: Spoilers ahead for Land of Bad.
Summary
Land of Bad’s ending concludes the movie’s tense events, with Liam Hemsworth’s Sgt. JJ Kinney barely making it out alive. Deployed behind enemy lines in the Philippines with the rest of his US Delta Force team, the inexperienced Kinney quickly finds himself alone once his fellow soldiers are presumed dead due to an encounter gone wrong. Leaving behind the JSOC operative his team was originally dispatched to retrieve,Land of Badchronicles Kinney’s attempts at being extracted from enemy territory.Kinney is a JTAC inLand of Bad, meaning his skill set doesn’t traditionally lend itself to such an experience.
Hemsworth is the co-leader of theLand of Badcast, with Russell Crowe’s Eddie “Reaper” Grimm serving as Kinney’s eye in the sky, remotely piloting a military drone and providing what support he can via brute force while also lending a sympathetic ear. After a failed extraction,Kinney is taken prisoner, but freed sooner after by a member of his Delta Force team, who is revealed to have survived the attack earlier in the movie. The pair head back to the original mission site to retrieve another fellow soldier from their squad, but doing so comes at a great cost.
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Sgt. Kinney Barely Manages To Escape The Airstrike That He Ordered Before The Mission Began
Reunited with Milo Ventimiglia’s Master Sgt. John “Sugar” Sweet, the duo mount a rescue mission to extract Bishop from the enemy’s cave system. The entire operation is on a timer of approximately 45 minutes. Three increasingly powerful bombs are requested by Kinney to be dropped on the underground structure every 15 minutes, with the third and final bomb set to be powerful enough to reduce the caves to dust.Hemsworth’s character immediately loses communication with Reaper after the plan is relayed, meaning he has no way of easily canceling the strikes, should the need arise.
With the first bomb essentially serving as a warning shot, the movie’s bad guy - Robert Rabiah’s Saeed Hashimi - doesn’t heed Kinney’s warning that they all need to escape.
Kinney and Sugar manage to infiltrate the base but are ultimately captured and stowed in the caves, with Sugar being executed shortly after. With the first bomb essentially serving as a warning shot, the movie’s bad guy - Robert Rabiah’s Saeed Hashimi - doesn’t heed Kinney’s warning that they all need to escape. Eventually, Hashimi and his forces find out the hard way and are vaporized, with Kinney’s underwater torture being the only thing that saves him from the flames. After freeing Bishop and the original CEO asset,Kinney reaches Reaper with seconds to spareto cancel the final bombing run.
Reaper Being Relieved Of Duty Almost Results in Kinney’s Death
Reaper is not present when Kinney calls to abort the strike
Despite being hours over the recommended shift length, Crowe’s character is still in operation, responsible for Kinney’s only backup. Eventually, military procedure overrules Reaper’s sense of duty, and he is ordered to stand down and go home. Reaper leaves his replacement with the coordinates for the coming trio of bomb strikes and eventually does as he’s told and leaves his station. WhenKinney attempts to contact the base to call off the final strike by asking for Reaper, the soldier who answers the phone merely passes on Reaper’s personal number and hangs up.
If Reaper were still present when the phone rang, the final strike could have been called off far sooner, rather than Crowe’s character having to rush back and give the order to abort in person.
Back in Las Vegas, the soldiers on the base are more concerned with watching basketball on TV rather than manning the phone, which is a point of contention between them and Reaper throughout the movie. While their attitude is mainly without consequence, it almost costs Kinney’s life. If Reaper were still present when the phone rang, the final strike could have been called off far sooner, rather than Crowe’s character having to rush back and give the order to abort in person.
Daniel McPherson’s character is dangerously negligent
He may not be a traditional villain, but the attitude of Daniel MacPherson’sLand of Badcharacter very nearly costs Kinney and Bishop their lives during their final escape attempt. As the ranking officer on the Las Vegas military installation,Packet has a responsibility to instill an atmosphere of disciplineand respect among the various personnel. Instead, he berates Reaper and largely ignores the importance the base’s phone could have at any time. He prioritizes being able to watch basketball without interruptions and without thinking of the potential consequences.
The only good thing Col. Packet does inLand of Badis to grant Reaper’s request to extend his shift even further, which is also arguably the wrong thing to do.
Of course,Saeed Hashimi is still inarguably the main villain of the piece, as he has many of the hallmarks of a classic action movie bad guy. His beheading of an innocent woman near the beginning of the movie and the attempted beheading of her young son quickly establish him as a figure not to be taken lightly. Packet’s actions border more on negligence than active villainy, but it’s clear he’s not one of the story’s heroes. Instead, he comes across as more of an endlessly frustrating obstacle.
The JSOC operative is the main reason for the movie’s story unfolding
Land of Bad’s ending doesn’t just focus on the tense, narrow escape of Kinney and Bishop from the aborted airstrike. Instead, it also folds in the rescue of the JSOC operative that Kinney’s team was originally dispatched to retrieve. While it adds a certain layer of satisfaction and accomplishment to the movie’s primary mission, it’s a moment that somehow still feels shoehorned in.
JSOC stands for Joint Special Operations Command.
By the time of the JSOC operative’s rescue, there’s been no mention of him in the movie for well over an hour, andthe reminder of why Kinney is there in the first place comes out of nowhere. It’s also quite surprising that he’s still alive, especially after how quickly Saeed had Sugar killed, and how severely the terrorist leader had tortured Hemsworth’s character. That being said, it’s possible Saeed needed his JSOC operative alive so he could extract information from him via nefarious means.
Reaper & Branson’s father-daughter dynamic happens all at once
Land of Bad’s main events conclude with Reaper smashing the base’s TV with a golf club, putting a satisfying emphasis on how important it is to remain focused during life-or-death scenarios. Intercut with this sequence is footage of Kinney and Bishop finally being extracted from behind enemy lines - the results of the fruit of Reaper’s labor and his commitment to his job. The cut to black on Kinney’s face seems like the perfect place to end the movie, butLand of Badincludes a short epilogue that’s tonally confusing.
Branson’s request for Reaper to walk her down the aisle is very forced.
Chika Ikogwe’s Sgt. Branson is Reaper’s partner throughout the movie’s mission - that is until they’re both dismissed near the end. The pair never really display much of a dynamic beyond being colleagues or friends, butthe final two minutes ofLand of Badhas Branson teasing a father-daughter dynamicbetween them. Branson’s request for Reaper to walk her down the aisle is very forced, and the fun little moment they have together where they practice dancing could almost be from a different movie altogether.
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The scene could have been a little more effective if Reaper had been depicted as a lonely individual. However, the movie almost goes out of its way on several occasions to drive home just how many people Russell Crowe’s character has in his life. Instead, the movie’s final sequence gives the impression of being incredibly tacked-on, and ultimately hurtsLand of Bad’s ending, which should have arrived a couple of minutes sooner.
Land of Bad
Cast
Land of Bad follows an elite air force mission gone awry, setting up a high-stakes rescue led by a drone pilot. The team must navigate hostile terrain in a bid for survival, featuring action-packed sequences that test their skills and resilience.
