‘Extraction’ is brutal, but it works.
Story
Tyler Rake, a deadly black market mercenary has to rescue the kidnapped son of an imprisoned drug lord in what may be his most dangerous mission yet.
That’s it, that’s the story. Simple isn’t it? But there’s something about a simple story that I like, given the nature of the movie, if it tried to be anything more than what it was, I don’t think it would have been as enjoyable. You have an issue that occurs within the first 10 minutes of the movie and the rest of it is spent trying to work around that issue. There are story beats that make the whole this less-predictable but it’s still a movie that you have seen before.
Chris Hemsworth is the draw. He’s the main character. The “hero” of the story. This is the first time I’ve seen him in a role like this and it’s so different from the role that he is most know for, Thor. Tyler is a badass and a terrible person but he’s also likeable and Chirs is able to balance the two very well. That’s why you root for him while you’re watching this movie. Where Thor is loud and humours, Tyler us silent and stoic. Picture Thor at the beginning of endgame where he’s brooding and multiply it by 100 and you’ll understand what I mean.
The rest of the cast is pretty good, especially Rudhraksh Jaiswal who plays Ovi Mahajan the boy who is kidnapped and Randeep Hooda who plays Saju, who works for Ovi’s father, whose performances stood out to me the most. Their characters have a connection and the two factors are able to convey that connection in a way that it both organic and believable.
Everyone else is good. In all honesty, you don’t spend enough time with them for you to really have any attachment to their character but for the one-dimensional characters, they play? They get a thumbs up from me.
Writing/Direction
I was surprised to learn that this was Sam Hargrave’sdirectorial debut. What I wasn’t surprised to learn was that he’s a stunt coordinator. You can see it in the way the stunt work is presented in the movie. Much like Chad Stahelski and David Leitch in John Wick, the stunt work in this movie is incredible. Having someone behind the camera that understands how stunts work really makes a difference as it grounds the film and makes it more realistic. The best way to describe the action in this movie is brutal and intense. You never know where it’s going to go and it leaves you on the edge of your seat. No seriously, there were so many moments where I gasped because of the intensity of the violence. When you watch the movie it feels like a first-person cover shooter and it makes the experience overall more immersive and chaotic, but it also has a mix of smooth camera pans and steady shots. It’s a nice mix of the two.
I’ve seen some reviews that say that the violence is gratuitous and I agree and disagree at the same time. Extraction is very violent but it’s also realistic in the way it portrays that violence. At no point in this movie does the protagonist feel invincible like in a lot of action movie. He can get hurt and he does frequently. It raises the stakes because you know that he could be killed at any point in the movie.
I think some of the realism comes from the writing. The screenplay was written by Joe Russo and if you’ve seen any of the MCU movies directed by the Russo brothers (and I know you have) then you’ll know that they’re good a creating a grounded story our of something fantastical and that does happen but on a MUCH smaller scale. That’s why I said called it realistic (as I can tell anyway.) I do have to say that most of the characters are one-dimensional. Tyler is the most developed character in the movie (makes sense seeing as it is his movie) and Sajua after that but I would have liked to see more from the other characters that way I could understand why they did what they did and what made them tick. This is especially true of the antagonist. He just seems like a generic drug lord. I would have liked to see how he got there, even if it was a throwaway line.
CGI/Set Design
This movie has a distinct yellow hue to is. Here’s a scene from the movie.
In the photo above it’s subtle but throughout the course of the movie in various scenes. When the trailer came out I saw a lot of complaints that looked a lot like this “Why do white people think foreign countries look like this.?” referencing the yellow filter. The filter in question, while present isn’t distracting. Once the film gets going you don’t realise that it’s there and it’s almost non-existent in some scenes.
The sets in this movie add to the claustrophobic nature of the film. Tight chase sequences are made even tighter when they take place in a crowded apartment building. And then when you consider how crowded Dhaka is a city, it makes for very interesting scenes.
Score/Soundtrack
The score is so-so. With everything going on in the movie, I never really stopped to listen and that’s int he scenes that have a score. Henry Jackman is very good at intense scores based on his previous work on Kong: Skull Island and the Captain America Franchise and the Uncharted games.
I prefer the silent nature of this movie as to one that isn’t score heavy. It is present but it is very much in the background, almost blanketed by the other things you hear, which works in favour of the movie
Overall Thoughts
Netflix was the perfect place for Extraction. I’m not sure that it would have made it’s budget back if it was released in theatres. I would have gone to see it but, I don’t know if the average moviegoer would have.
All in all, I really enjoyed Extraction. I’m watching it again with my parents as I write this review and they are loving it. My dad especially. During one of the fight sequences, he said this about Tyler “You’re not John Wick. Only John Wick is allowed to shoot like this.” and I think that is the best thing I have ever heard concerning this movie, but the John Wick comparison is accurate. Though John Wick is more sleek, and stylized. Extraction is a lot grittier and it works. While I don’t know if I would watch it again. I enjoyed it the first time I watched it (and right now as I write this)
Originally published at http://www.thecinematicaficionado.com on April 25, 2020.
