There’s something about certain stories that don’t want you to keep guessing every minute, but unfold in a way that lets you sit back, relax, and appreciate solid writing and the way the actors do their job to portray the same on the screen. Tommy Jackson’s action thriller “Land of Wolves” falls under the second category, and even with a modest indie budget, the film feels so damn flawless. The action scenes are gripping and keep your nervous system on the fritz constantly, while the moral questions the film throws at you really make you think twice about how we perceive soldiers putting their lives on the line for their country. We’ve seen plenty of films where a vet is dealing with their PTSD and how difficult it gets for them to live after seeing and causing so much bloodshed, but “Land of Wolves” flips this entire trope and makes something far more interesting which makes you feel that we need more no nonsense films like this. James William Clark, as the lead, is fantastic. He looks lean, fights like a true boxer, and makes you feel every emotion he is going through. So without wasting much more time, let’s head right into what goes down in the film.
What happens in the film?
Marcus is a soldier who is dealing with some serious PTSD from his time in Afghanistan, where his superiors made a wrong call and got his brothers killed. All Marcus could do was save his own life. He doesn’t want to be put in such a situation ever again, but his former commander, Briggs, shows up at his gym to ask him to come to another mission. A seal named Knox is captured by the Mexican cartel, and Briggs asks Marcus to be a part of the rescue team. Even though Marcus doesn’t want to, he goes against his gut to join the mission. Marcus, Briggs, Jace, and Wade, the four Navy SEALs, infiltrate the building where the cartel operates. The four men manage to neutralize a bunch of cartel members before the rest show up wearing gas masks, looking like absolute menaces, and release a gas that slowly puts Marcus and his brothers to sleep. Their comms go dark, and the handler, Anderson, loses her calm after realising that her rescue team is probably in danger. Anderson pleads to her boss, the General, to let her send another rescue team. But the General is mad enough already, and there’s no way he’ll let more of his men risk their lives. He makes it clear that if Anderson’s rescue team gets killed, that’s the end of this ghost hunt, since he doesn’t believe that Knox is even alive. However, when Marcus, Briggs, and Wade come back to their senses, they find this guy, Butcher, is torturing Jace, the only soldier who got wounded in the fight. Butcher is also running a live stream, and we see wealthy billionaires wearing masks watching this stream and having the time of their lives. He tells Briggs and his men that the only way they’ll ever get to see Knox is if they manage to survive the underground fight ring he runs, inspired by the Gladiator fights from the Roman Empire. These fights only end when one fighter kills the other, and there’s a huge audience for it. So they have no option but to fight, and Anderson decides to rescue these men herself with her team of hired assassins, led by Alejandro.
Who is Commodus?
The Butcher starts to arrange the fights, and the first match is between Jace, who’s already wounded beyond his limits, and a huge guy called the Bear. Jace tries to hold his own, and he even manages to land a few punches, which only makes the Bear angrier, and he ends up beating Jace to a pulp. To make matters worse, Bear looks Marcus and his friends right in the eye before biting Jace’s neck and killing him right there. Briggs and Wade are then put in the ring to fight a couple of people who they defeat pretty easily, and then comes Marcus’ turn to fight the Bear. Fuelled by rage and grief over losing his friend right in front of his eyes, Marcus doesn’t waste much time to knock the Bear out. But merely knocking your opponent out isn’t enough in this ring, so Butcher hands him a sledgehammer to finish the job. When Marcus refuses to kill the man, one of the audience members, who’s also wearing a mask, claims that he must do so since they paid a buttload of money to watch him kill his opponent. But instead of changing Marcus’ mind, this remark only triggers him the wrong way, and he attacks the masked man. As Marcus unmasks the guy, the live stream is shut down, and the audience isn’t happy with his behaviour. Butcher orders his men to put Marcus back in his cell, and Knox is already inside the cell, waiting for his old friend. Knox tells Marcus that he shouldn’t waste his rage, and he must use it to rise up the ranks in the ring. Marcus is deeply confused, and it gets only weirder when Knox claims that he isn’t a prisoner here, it’s him who runs the place. When Knox and his men came here to infiltrate the cartel, he got captured the same way, and he had to kill his own team members to earn the respect of the Great Dios, his mentor who’s now dead after passing the torch to him. Knox says he’s now known as Commodus, and he tells Marcus that he should prepare to fight his friends soon, since there’s no point being a slave to the United States, as the government clearly doesn’t care enough about the men who fight for the country.
Is Commodus truly evil?
When Marcus sleeps, he gets visions of his father, and flashbacks from his childhood. His father trained him to be a fighter, a wolf, and a good man, over everything. The next day, we see Wade pummel through his opponent, and the Butcher is extremely impressed with his valour. Next up, Marcus and Briggs have to team up to fight a couple of guys who are also friends. The fight ends up being pretty one sided, as Marcus and Briggs prove to be too good for their opponents. But when Briggs is about to kill one of the men, Marcus stops him, which angers Briggs more than we’d have imagined. Briggs has realised that if he refuses to kill his rivals, Butcher wouldn’t think twice to murder him. Commodus comes down to the ring, where his men tranquilize Briggs and Marcus, before telling Marcus that he has another fight to win the next day.
The guards wake Marcus up the next morning to take him to a luncheon, hosted by Commodus himself. Commodus has invited a bunch of his rich audience to dine with him, and Marcus is made to sit right across from his old friend. However, things take a turn very quickly, as we see all the billionaires coughing and dying as soon as they drink their liquor. Commodus says that he uses his darkness to make an ally out of these people and flush them out of their homes before he could eradicate them himself, which sounds great if I’m being honest. However, Marcus asks if Jace was also an evil man who deserved to die, but Commodus reminds him that although Jace was an honorable soldier, he too had taken many innocent lives in the name of his country. Commodus claims that he gets rid of the worst criminals, rapists, soldiers, by running this system, and he has no regrets about the collateral damage. But then Commodus reveals something that is quite shocking, Anderson sent him three years ago to kill Dios and control his business from the shadows. When Knox didn’t complete his task and Dios handed the business to him, Anderson sent Briggs to eliminate Knox. Marcus begins to realize that Anderson is the one who’s been making his and his friends’ lives a living hell, not Knox.
Does Marcus get out of the cartel?
The ultimate fight of the Gladiator arena begins when Marcus has to face his own commander, Briggs. Marcus is convinced that Knox isn’t the enemy they need to kill, but Briggs can’t believe that this place changed Marcus this quickly. After a toe to toe fight, Marcus is the one with the upper hand, and Butcher hands him a ceremonial sword to behead Briggs. Marcus, however, stabs Butcher with the sword, and seeing this unexpected turn of events, Wade and the other prisoners quickly band together to take down the guards and plan their escape. But Butcher isn’t dead yet, and he hunts Marcus down. After giving him an awful beating, Butcher tries to choke Marcus, but gets stabbed once again, and this time he doesn’t survive. Meanwhile, Anderson and Alejandro are the only ones left, since the cartel has killed the rest of their men. When Wade and the prisoners meet Anderson, she doesn’t think twice before gunning them all down in cold blood. Anderson then finds Briggs, who is already bleeding to death, but before dying, he finally calls her out for everything she’s done, something he should’ve done long ago, before Anderson puts a bullet through him. With most of the cartel members dead, Marcus asks Knox to come with him and get out of this place, but Knox knows he can’t do that. Anderson also finds Knox and Marcus, and Knox knows very well that he can’t let Anderson take over the dirty business. So before Anderson could do anything, Knox claims that he’s bigger than life and death, and he shoots himself. Anderson loses her mind, knowing that Knox basically snatched the shady business she was trying to get hold of, so she decides to kill Marcus and end this for good. But by now, Marcus has understood that people like Anderson don’t actually care about anything but themselves, so despite getting stabbed by her, he manages to kill Anderson while Alejandro just stands there, watching it all happen. After Anderson is dead, Marcus asks Alejandro if he’s a wolf, and when he says yes, these two men decide to join forces to eliminate all the corrupt people that are plaguing the American Government. In the end, we see Marcus and Alejandro capture the General, who was bullying Anderson earlier in the film. The General warns the two men that killing him would be a death wish, but Marcus simply smiles at the remark, because technically, they’re already dead, as he never reported his return from the covert rescue operation he had sent them on. As for Alejandro, he was an independent killer for hire, so he too, can help Marcus get rid of scums like Anderson and the General.
