One of 2024’s best action movies is now available to stream

Starring an Oscar-winner, the film holds a 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Land of Bad, a terrific new action thriller starring Oscar-winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator) and Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games), has been added to Prime Video and is currently top of its most-watched movie chart.

The film centres around a covert US Special Forces operation in the South Philippines that goes horribly wrong, leaving rookie officer Kinney (Hemsworth) separated from his team and trapped within enemy territory.

His only hope for survival turns out to be an Air Force drone pilot in the US nicknamed Reaper (Crowe), who attempts to guide Kinney out of the dangerous situation despite the vast distances between the two.

Land of Bad was co-written and directed by up-and-coming filmmaker William Eubank (Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin, Underwater) and also stars Luke Hemsworth (Westworld), Milo Ventimiglia (This is Us) and Ricky Whittle (American Gods).

Recalling military action thrillers like 13 Hours, Lone Survivor and Triple Frontier, the new movie boasts hard-hitting action and nail-biting thrills as it consistently drops its central team of soldiers into increasingly perilous situations.

On top of this though, the film is a fascinating exploration of how technological advances have changed the nature of warfare, while also telling an oddly emotional story about the bond that develops between Kinney and Reaper despite them being continents apart.

Holding at the time of writing a 94% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, here is a sample of some of the positive words critics had for Land of Bad.

The AU Review: "Bad by name, but not by nature, [William] Eubank has crafted a genuine nail-biter."

Blu-ray.com: "It’s more of a B-movie than a thought-provoking thriller, but Eubank does try to keep the endeavour technical and emotional in some ways, retaining human qualities between explosions and gunfights."

The Hollywood Reporter: "Russell Crowe… spends most of the movie sitting in a chair staring at a screen and manages to completely steal it anyway."

Midwest Film Journal: "Land of Bad doesn’t reinvent the VOD action wheel, but it offers everything you could want from this kind of tactical thriller — action, suspense, ticking clocks, decent dialogue. Sometimes that’s more than enough."

MovieWeb: "Land of Bad is a taut and harrowing military thriller that viscerally captures the real-time stakes of bloody combat. A sobering narrative depicts the fortitude, professionalism, and lethal expertise needed by soldiers in the worst-case scenario."

Land of Bad is streaming on Prime Video in Ireland and the UK right now.

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