Two stars. Rated R, for profanity, brief drug use, and relentless strong, bloody violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.8.20
It’s always easy to identify a stunt coordinator/second unit director granted the opportunity to ascend to the big-dog throne.
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| Determined to keep young Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) alive, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) must figure out how to evade an entire city's worth of bent cops and soldiers under the command of a ruthless drug lord. |
The resulting film is little but relentless — and redundant — action, with fleeting pauses for microscopic dollops of character development and something vaguely approaching actual acting. The scripts can be written on a postage stamp.
Such is the case with the Netflix original, Extraction, which — if nothing else — certainly gave star Chris Hemsworth a lot of exercise … and very little else. Absolutely none of his twinkly charm is on display here; he plays his role as if it were a punishment.
Director Sam Hargrave and editors Ruthie Aslan and Peter B. Ellis keep things moving at a furious clip; even so, there’s only so many ways to shoot and stab people.
One gets the impression our protagonist is on a crusade to single-handedly decimate the population of Bangladesh. As this endlessly violent saga proceeds, he appears to be succeeding.
During a brief prologue, we meet Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the young son of jailed arch-criminal Mahajan (Pankaj Tripathi); the boy lives a privileged but lonely existence, his every move monitored by gun-toting protectors. Due to Ovi’s own carelessness, he’s kidnapped by thugs belonging to rival drug lord Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli), and squirreled away in a heavily guarded apartment complex in Dhaka.
Mahajan, understandably ticked off, orders his lieutenant Saju (Randeep Hooda) to rescue the boy … which is, of course, utterly impossible. Asif’s legion of well-armed goons aside, the drug lord also has the local police and military in his pocket.
So, who ya gonna call?
That would be Tyler Rake (Hemsworth), a black-market mercenary whose utter fearlessness results mostly from a death wish. This is, you see, a Man Haunted By Something. Hargrave and scripter Joe Russo tease us with occasional memory flashes, as this saga proceeds; Hemsworth’s taciturn features reveal very little.
Actually, they reveal absolutely nothing, and the same can be said of most characters in this video game disguised as a movie. Scant dialog is traded back and forth; emotional depth is conveyed (actually, it usually isn’t) by lingering takes on grim, silent expressions. We’re just supposed to understand, donchaknow.
