Extraction **½ (2020, Chris Hemsworth, Randeep Hooda, Golshifteh Farahani, Pankaj Tripathi, David Harbour) – Classic Movie Review 12,545

Director Sam Hargrave makes his feature directorial debut for the 2020 American action thriller film Extraction starring Chris Hemsworth as an Australian mercenary who takes on a mission to save an Indian drug lord’s kidnapped son in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The mission goes wrong when he is double-crossed, and so he and the boy (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) have to run for their lives, followed by whole armies of bad guys.

It is written by Joe Russo, based on the 2014 graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks, Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Fernando León González, and Eric Skillman. And this is the film’s main problem: there is no actual plot, characterisation, or story arc, just the very generic set-up and a lot of derivative, mindless action, and gratuitous violence.

However, much of that action is awesome, and the film mostly looks brilliant thanks to the fresh-looking and exciting location filming in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, as well as in Ban Pong, Ratchaburi, Thailand.

The film is practically non-stop action for all of its 117 minutes, but it stalls and goes stale in its few pauses for dialogue, which exposes how weak the screen-writing is. Most of the time in the acting department Hemsworth is just doing Clint Eastwood-style mumbling, grunting and groaning. Maybe they should have called it Mumbling in Mumbai, since they had a title problem, changing it from Dhaka to Out of the Fire and finally to the previously used Extraction.

But, hey, it’s not Citizen Kane, it more like a second-rate Bourne Identity clone, even seeming to use some of ideas and images. As such, it is brisk and fast moving, and it’s really quite entertaining, just for the action, that is. Other than the locations and stunt work, there is one touch of real class. It has an old-style star at the centre. Most of all, Hemsworth gives it all he’s got, and that’s really quite a lot. It is good enough to think that there is a much better film trying to get out of here.

Also in the cast are Randeep Hooda (his international film debut), Golshifteh Farahani, Pankaj Tripathi and David Harbour.

Netflix released Extraction on 24 April 2020. It became the most-watched original film in Netflix’s history, with more than 99 million viewers during the first four weeks.

The main cast returned for the sequel Extraction 2, released on 16 June 2023.

Extraction is a 2015 American action thriller film directed by Steven C Miller and stars Kellan Lutz and Bruce Willis,

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,545

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