Shadow Land is the third and probably the final film for stuntman turned director James Bamford that was released over the last few months. The first two films, Air Force One Down and Jade, were, to put it mildly, well disappointing, therefore the question, does the third time work for him or is this yet another failure for Bamford?
It begins with an old man tossing and turning in bed. He draws out a gun concealed beneath his blankets and fires at a man who is standing at the door in a mask . As he readies himself to remove the mask of the stranger, who is not even injured, he gets startled as he is shocked and finds himself in bed. Though the man he shot is no longer there, he pictures a shadowy figure lingering behind him in the distance.
He then steps out, and at the time when he was searching for the masked man, other men are visible looking on at him. However, they do not pose any danger because they are part of his service. The man in question is now Robert Wainwright, played by Jon Voight in such films as the Painter and Runaway Train, serving as the ex President of the USA, who these days spends time in a lonely retirement at his ranch which the audiences are told is Shadow Land.
It seems this is not the first occurrence such as this. It appears one of his detail even suggested that he should take the live ammo out of his house; perhaps because he stated, “I have signed a contract to take a bullet for him, not to take it from him.” Then, there is a flashback of him in office making a decision to execute an attack on a suspected nuclear installation in Astovia the very same country which got featured in Air Force One Down while there are still Americans in that country. Reports that are fleeced now turned out to be the other way and the attack was disastrous failure.
The script is made by J.D. Zeik who previously has been credited for Ronin in addition to Witchblade who is also credited for Pistol Whipped and one of the more supporting writers Ian Corson who previously wrote script for 2000s Falling Through also directed a Fatal Attraction clone “Malicious” in 1995. One would assume that the lack of any other recent credits for any of them would be a cautionary tale.
In fact, given how antiquated the movie appears, I would not be shocked to learn that the script for Shadow Land was composed in the early 2000s. George W. Bush is rumored to be the inspiration for Wainwright’s character, and when you switch Astovia for Iraq, this link is even more intuitive considering that one of these firms appears to be an oil construction company called Burton Group, reminiscent of Halliburton, isn’t it?
About twenty minutes into the movie, there’s a scene where Waight imagines that he’s witnessing soldiers being killed, and then he witnesses the injured soldiers and households in the hospital. That, in concert with the name, made me believe that Shadow Land was perhaps about to take the course of Dreamscape. The second film to be assigned PG-13 rating had Eddie Albert playing US president who was pursued by an assassin capable of entering into his dreams.
Sadly, Shadow Land is not quite as original or as captivating. It’s an uninspired and formulaic conspiracy thriller that throws out a few interesting concepts only to leave them behind in favor of more cliches, one being if Rachel and Elliot will ever get back together. That possibly is the most gripping of the film’s plot points.
Wainwright’s entourage includes a former aid to Jasper who was in Astovia when it took place (Sean Maguire, V for Vengeance, Once Upon A Time), a ghostwriter Rachel (Rhona Mitra, Skylines, Hard Target 2) one of the main characters in the film who comes in with the sole purpose of assisting Wainwright with writing his life story although she despise him and his ways, and a psychologist Dr Elliot Davrow (Marton Csokas, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Sleeping Dogs) who was tasked with evaluating the ex-President’s state of mind. He also happens to be Rachel’s ex-husband. All who could have motives for wanting him dead, or committed.
Even worse, it is unable to choose whether it wishes to emphasize the alleged scandal related to the assault on Astovia– followed by a regime change or to focus on whether someone is targeting Wainwright or whether it is a figment of his imagination. So there is a lot of dialogue and very little action. The eventual expose is not shocking, although we are given little lead to it, and the anti-climax it brings is of no more energy than has been the whole film.
Considering its plot, Shadow Land could have been an engaging thriller. The writers, on the other hand, made no use of it. In fact, it is so poorly written that in the end I had more sympathy for the bad guy than I had for the so called good guy.
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