The directorial debut from Sam Hargrave (best known as the stunt coordinator for the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Extraction is a 2020 action thriller released onto Netflix. Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is a mercenary, willing to take on dangerous or difficult jobs. When Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of a wealthy Indian drug lord, is kidnapped to Bangladesh, Rake must infiltrate and extract the target from the hold of Bangladesh’s largest drug lord Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli), an opponent of Ovi’s father. Unbeknownst to Rake and his team, Saju (Randeep Hooda), the enforcer to Ovi’s father, is also tracking down the boy, intending to take him back home.
+ both Hemsworth and Hooda take nearly equal amounts of an ass kicking throughout the film, but certainly give more in return. Hemsworth’s obvious physique makes him a believable action star, and while he clearly didn’t do the same intense bootcamp Keanu Reeves did for John Wick, he seems to at least know how to handle a movie gun
+ the actions comes at you fast and furious, taking numerous cues from John Wick, Jason Bourne, and The Raid series. One seemingly uninterrupted 12 minute shot in the opening third of the movie is incredible to watch, and ramps up the tension like you wouldn’t believe
+ the setting of Bangladesh is a very welcome change of scenery compared to the more obvious and common New York/Russian streets/Middle East/vague European country side most of these action movies go for. The cramped and often full locales make for intense close quarters action (and presumably a whole lot of off-screen collateral damage)
– a handful of supporting characters were very underutilised, despite presumably being on a similar level of skill to Rake himself. This is billed as “Chris Hemsworth’s action movie” so I wasn’t expecting them to be given the same screen time, but at some point it’s not worth having them at all
– the plot is fine, but hardly anything groundbreaking. We’ve seen this same sort of ‘big tough man protects child’ in far too much media already; see movies, Safe, Mercury Rising, Last Action Hero, Logan, The Road, and so on, and even video games The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. It’s just not a thrilling story point for me anymore
> apparently you can’t take screenshots directly from Netflix anymore. I don’t know when this came into effect, but imagine my surprise when I had to get the images in this article from the trailer on YouTube
> The Raid has ruined me, because I compare every western action movie to it, and it’s even better sequel
Should you see this film: Overall, I enjoyed this. Despite the fact it seems to be Frankenstein’d from the best parts of various other action media, both Hemsworth and Hooda were compelling and believable action stars, and though the plot is not all that unique, it’s held together with a few twists and turns to keep things interesting.
MoshFish Reviews 
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