Extraction

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Golshifeth Farahani, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Pankaj Tripathi, David Harbour
Directed by: Sam Hargrave
Rating: R
Genre: Action, Thriller
2020

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A mercenary (Chris Hemsworth) takes on a dangerous assignment to extract the kidnapped son of a drug lord.

Review:

Tim: In April 2020, Extraction got a lot of press when it was released on Netflix. I read a bunch of reviews (not all from critics, many from regular viewers) and I was surprised by how many positive ones there were. This might have had to do with the fact that we're all in quarantine still and are desperately looking for anything to break the monotony. This movie has some strengths, no doubt, but it suffers from typical action movie flaws. I thought it was decent, but mostly unremarkable.

I was surprised that Joe Russo wrote the screenplay. His work in the Marvel movies has been exemplary. This movie was fine. It just felt like we've seen this exact story multiple times before. A battle hardened soldier type takes on the most dangerous mission of his career as he attempts to free an innocent child from the bad guys who have taken him. Along the way, he kills a lot of people, unexpectedly bonds with the subject he's been assigned to protect, and sacrifices greatly to keep them safe. Am I describing Man on Fire? Taken? One of a dozen other movies? It's been done before. The story didn't offer anything especially new and certainly nothing overly interesting.

The characters were fine, but not especially memorable. We get just enough backstory to give us brief insight into the characters, but then it's nearly all action all the time. Tyler Rake isn't an especially memorable character. The drug lord's son didn't make you fall in love with him, so you weren't all that invested in what happened to him. The supporting characters mostly felt too peripheral to make much of a difference (with a few exceptions). This movie was a perfectly fine action movie, but you can't claim the script or characters offers anything special.

Now, I will grant you that the cast truly elevates this film. Tyler Rake might be a forgettable character, but Chris Hemsworth is great in this movie. It's fun to see how he has matured as an actor. In his early films, I used to cringe at some of his acting. I was very impressed with how he showed up here. He's obviously physically right for the role, he but delivered a strong performance. I also have to applaud Randeep Hooda, who might give the best performance of the film. His character is a bit too thin- he is set up as the antagonist early on, but we're also shown he has a family that he cares about. The character might not be great, but Hooda does something quite remarkable with him. You actually see him as a fully fleshed out character. He's interesting, he's cool, he's engaging. His story line was one of the more intriguing of the film. Whenever he's on screen- whether in full action mode or the quiet scenes in between, he makes the movie better. It's a fantastic performance and one of the best parts of the entire film. Rudhraksh Jaiswal was good, too. He's slightly better than the average "kidnapped child" actor. He worked well with Hemsworth. I also want to mention David Harbour. He's only briefly in the film, but he was fantastic with his limited screen time. In some ways this helps the movie, but it hurts it as well. The dynamic between he and Hemsworth is fantastic, but we get so little time with them. It felt like that was more compelling than many other sequences of the film, but that was shortened to make time for less exciting ones. It didn't make a lot of sense.

Now, I will say that the action in this movie is excellent. There's no question, that's the biggest reason to watch this movie. The script and characters hurt it, but the action is top notch. Whether this is long shots, or showing the grisly violence involved, this movie ratchets the action up quite high. It was thrilling, exciting, and so entertaining. I don't fault people who love this movie- I imagine they got sucked into that action whirlpool and enjoyed the adrenaline rush. I certainly did and I don't have any complaints about the well-executed action sequences. They are fun to watch.

I really wanted to like Extraction more than I did. It's a decent movie for sure. The action is great, but the rest of the film is a bit too thin. Ultimately, it's not much more than a distraction (which is what we need during this Covid-19 quarantine). You can do worse than this movie, but be wary of the hype- this movie is decent, but flawed.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Man on Fire, Taken, The Raid: Redemption