Critic Reviews
Badland (2007) Rank 5 Reviews
Expert Review Summary
based on (16) reviews
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Excellent
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Village Voice (Aaron Hillis)
Barely a ripple in this year's wave of returning Iraq War–veteran dramas (Home of the Brave, In the Valley of Elah, et al.), writer-director Francesco Lucente's overconfident, emotionally forced 160-minute opus offers trite antiwar platitudes—at ...read the complete Badland movie review at Village Voice (Aaron Hillis)
News Blaze (Kam Williams)
Jerry (Jamie Draven) was just a patriotic country boy from the Badlands of Montana trying to serve his country when he naively enlisted in the Marine Reserves as a teenager. But he was never the same after being discharged from the military following the ...read the complete Badland movie review at News Blaze (Kam Williams)
New York Times (Matt Zoller Seitz)
The mawkish yet weirdly mesmerizing film Badland is independent in scale but aggressively Hollywood in storytelling. ...read the complete Badland movie review at New York Times (Matt Zoller Seitz)
Monsters and Critics (Ron Wilkinson)
Exploiting what it is supposed to renounce, "Badland" combines a dreadfully long and dull screenplay and extremely plain surroundings to make a well-meaning anti-war film you'll want to miss. ...read the complete Badland movie review at Monsters and Critics (Ron Wilkinson)
TV Guide's Movie Guide (Ken Fox)
Clocking in at just under three hours, writer-director Francesco Lucente's earnest attempt at making an Iraq War-era Coming Home says many things at once without much perspective or clarity. ...read the complete Badland movie review at TV Guide's Movie Guide (Ken Fox)
Boxoffice Magazine (Jay Antani)
From top to bottom, Francesco Lucente's Badland is an example of such terminal awfulness that writing about it is as exasperating as watching it. After being dishonorably discharged from service in Iraq (for reasons Lucente, in an inept narrative ...read the complete Badland movie review at Boxoffice Magazine (Jay Antani)
Los Angeles Times (Kevin Thomas)
"Badland" strikes like a bolt of lightning out of nowhere. This modest-budget picture with starkly effective Canadian locales standing in for Montana and Wyoming arrives with scant notice, no major studio campaign or big-name cast, but it unflinchingly ...read the complete Badland movie review at Los Angeles Times (Kevin Thomas)
Wolf Entertainment Guide (William Wolf)
One of the most troubling emerging stories from the disastrous Iraq misadventure that goes beyond the casualty list of American servicemen killed is the enormous number of returning veterans physically or psychologically maimed. This background gives ...read the complete Badland movie review at Wolf Entertainment Guide (William Wolf)
The Hollywood Reporter (Michael Rechtshaffen)
When the picture gets around to its calculated socko ending, the viewer has long been pummeled into a state of numbness. ...read the complete Badland movie review at The Hollywood Reporter (Michael Rechtshaffen)
Film Journal International (Eric Monder)
Badland is like a post-9/11 Best Years of Our Lives. Here, a soldier tries to readjust to civilian life after a tour of duty, but his experiences are much more harrowing than anything that happens in that solemn World War II classic. Director Francesco ...read the complete Badland movie review at Film Journal International (Eric Monder)
Variety (Robert Koehler)
It's a long and winding road for a depressed, distressed Iraq war vet in "Badland," a strenuously solemn film that wants to create some kind of American pastoral tragedy out of the nation's current angst with the war. But whatever dramatic values are ...read the complete Badland movie review at Variety (Robert Koehler)
New York Daily News (Jack Mathews)
Possibly the worst idea for a movie this century. ...read the complete Badland movie review at New York Daily News (Jack Mathews)
Slant Magazine
Badland may have seemed less derivative were it not for the decision to ape its title after Terrence Malick's Badlands, a great film this flimsy wartime diatribe calls out to in hopes of claiming its own legitimacy (it may be unfair to judge any film ...read the complete Badland movie review at Slant Magazine
Hollywood Report Card (Ross Anthony)
Some good performances. But, the overall disturbing atmosphere of the film is more than I prefer. That said, I appreciate the effort to raise awareness of PTSD. ...read the complete Badland movie review at Hollywood Report Card (Ross Anthony)
New York Post (Kyle Smith)
THE year's dullest movie has arrived: the deeply silly "Badland," which is as dead as winter and twice as long.
British actor Jamie Draven plays Jerry Rice (Joe Montana would have been a better name for this Heartlandville, USA, type), an Iraq war ...read the complete Badland movie review at New York Post (Kyle Smith)
The New York Times (Matt Zoller Seitz)
“Badland,” a melodrama by the writer and director Francesco Lucente, stands apart from the recent throng of post-9/11 dramas by posing a burning question we haven’t heard yet: Can a mentally ill Iraq war veteran who murdered his pregnant wife and tw ...read the complete Badland movie review at The New York Times (Matt Zoller Seitz)
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