The relationship between movies that played in theaters and those that went straight to video or cable used to be fairly straightforward: theaters were for the theoretical prestige items and the money-makers, while video and cable were for more lurid or less professional productions that weren’t deemed ready for prime time. This attitude isn’t accurate at all in the age of streaming, of course, where so many shows and movies are needed to fill the great maw of endless sites looking to satiate endless viewing metrics that notions of quality are often irrelevant. Now acclaimed festival movies gobbled up by a large streamer can mix elbows with a straight-to-streaming actioner.
This shift in attitude has led to a change in how movie stars navigate the divide between mainstream filmmaking and everything else. Actors who might not be quite as hot as they used to be can now build their own cottage industries of genre films in the streaming world, and those movies have a shot at being good. Nicolas Cage is something like the great double agent between the worlds, navigating theatrical releases and VOD titles with style and ease and utterly no self-consciousness.
Russell Crowe is a newer case in point. From the late 1990s to the early aughts, he was the heavy-duty firebrand who specialized in blockbusters with pedigree. Things leveled off, and now he regularly pops up in titles that spent a week or two in theaters before finding their true calling as streaming hits. No one is going to mistake these titles for, say, “Master and Commander,” but Crowe has only grown more appealing over the years. Heavier than he was in his prime (one relates), bearded, shaggy and baggy, Crowe seems less determined to be great at all costs, and for that he seems more human than he was at his zenith. He is a star with baggage, softened by experience.
Two movies currently streaming benefit from Crowe’s gravitas: William Eubanks’ “Land of Bad,” currently a top-ten pick on Netflix, and Joshua John Miller’s “The Exorcism,” which can be rented on various streamers and is, among other things, Crowe’s second exorcist movie in as many years. Crowe is in a “see what sticks” phase in his career, and he’s doing good work in unexpected places for those paying attention.
“Land of Bad” is an agreeably straightforward action-thriller that brings to mind the movies of the 1980s that found stars like Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris lost in a jungle and looking to win the Vietnam War for a Reagan-era crowd that wanted results without nuance. Eubanks isn’t interested in anything too political though, and he’s only as jingoistic as the plot requires. In fact, a little shameless jingoism might’ve been good for flavor, whether or not it makes any moral sense.
I confess to missing the shamelessness of ‘80s pop culture, from hair metal to the homoerotic peacocking of our action icons. In “Predator,” which “Land of Bad” leans on a bit, the first act is devoted to the cast flexing their muscles while spouting ludicrously macho one-liners. Eubank has a few scenes in a helicopter that try to capture that spirit, but the insults are tame, and the actors are anonymous and eager to please. Some of these actors have potential though, especially Ricky Whittle, who might be able to peacock with the best of them if given the opportunity.
A bunch of soldiers are sent to the Philippines to rescue someone from imprisonment by a group of terrorists and arms dealers. The film’s lead is Kinney (Liam Hemsworth), a fresh-faced techie with little field experience, which inevitably means that he’s about to have his mettle tested by a disastrous mission. Navigating the jungle while bad guys try to kill him, Kinney maintains contact over the phone with Reaper (Crowe), who controls drones and orchestrates remote bomb detonations. The two guys become remote friends in a desperate situation, a la Bruce Willis and Reginald VelJohnson in “Die Hard,” and Reaper will do what it takes to see Kinney gets home.
Eubanks’ action isn’t stylish, but it’s crisp and coherent and attention is paid to the eerie bright greenness and suffocating humidity of the jungle atmosphere. Eubanks directed that Kristen Stewart monster movie “Underwater” a few years back, and I left that film thinking him to be a competent craftsman who’s interested in doing formula work well. “Land of Bad” leaves a similar impression — it gets the job done, and it’s far superior to most nearly-straight-to-streaming action schlock. I predict that this will be a streaming favorite, particularly for middle-aged men after football, for years onward.
Can Eubanks do more than get the job done? Impossible to guess, but probably. The scenes with Crowe suggest an itch to loosen the movie’s formula up with human comedy. Reaper doesn’t handle authority well, and he doesn’t have the status that he should have in the military for a man his age, and all that context adheres to formula and also serves as a little in-joke regarding how a mighty Oscar-winner is now doing parts in vaguely obscure genre films. Crowe is a good sport, and “Land of Bad” needs his volatility and, yes, his warmth, as a wild card to leaven the clichés.
“The Exorcism” is a more interesting prospect on paper than “Land of Bad” and, alas, less watchable. There’s lots of meta-textual pedigree here. Director Joshua John Miller played the undead little boy Homer in Kathryn Bigelow’s 1980s-era horror western, “Near Dark,” and he is the son of Jason Miller, star of “The Exorcist,” and the brother of Jason Patric, star of, among other things, the 1980s-era vampire movie, “The Lost Boys.” Miller has lived horror movies, and “The Exorcism” is concerned with the boundaries between real and cinematic horror.
As in “Land of Bad,” Crowe’s gravitas, partially as a faded A-list actor, is consciously tapped here. Crowe plays Anthony Miller, impossible not to notice the name and its similarity to various people in Miller’s own background, who is, well, a faded A-list actor now making genre movies. Anthony is tapped to do an “Exorcist” clone that is cursed, though perhaps the true curse is his re-ascendant alcoholism.
This is a rich premise for a film, and the first act of “The Exorcism” is promising. Crowe is superb here, earnestly mining Anthony’s demons and giving them the weight of his own legend. Think of what George C. Scott, a brilliant actor and infamous alcoholic who eventually wound up doing genre films, brought to “The Changeling.” There is something particularly inspiring and awesome about an actor who decides to bring his A-game to a project that may not require or expect it, utilizing an opportunity to stage a personal exorcism, or at least sustaining the illusion of one. Crowe’s performance in the first half of “The Exorcism” is his best work in years.
Then “The Exorcism” turns into another exorcist movie. The hall-of-mirrors between real and imagined and autobiographical and fictional is discarded for green vomit and swirling furniture kabuki. “The Pope’s Exorcist,” Crowe’s prior exorcist movie, was similarly unable to utilize his gamesmanship, in that case his willingness to ham it up as a cheeky exorcist on a motorbike that appeared to be the size of a child’s pool floaty.
I’ve gone on the record before concerning my conviction that there are no clichés duller than those of exorcist movies, and I particularly cannot understand why one would turn to them in the face of better ideas, as well as an actor who is at an odd place in his career and is more than willing to play and soar.
“Land of Bad” and “The Pope’s Exorcist” are streaming on Netflix. “The Exorcism” is rentable on various streamers.