Blood Pressure Blog

When Chris Hemsworth isn’t doing ads for Tourism Australia or playing the god of midlife crises, he turns to low tier action movies to while his time. On the surface, Extraction, a Netflix funded action thriller produced by Avengers Endgame producers Joe and Anthony Russo, should hold up to the lofty standards of the network and the individuals involved. However, even with the casting of Chris “Outback Steakhouse” Hemsworth, this movie still falls flat on its face faster than an Australian cooking prawns on the barbie.

Extraction follows the journey of black-market mercenary Tyler Rake; a name that pretty much asks for low tier dad jokes about gardening equipment. Rake’s mission is to rescue Ovi Mahajan, the son of a large Indian drug lord, who’s kidnapped by another rival drug lord in Bangladesh. The end goal and the location of the climax to deliver the rescued child is a place called the “Extraction” point, a term that gets thrown around more times than actual character development in the film. 

The film follows a very predictable format especially with the supporting cast, pretty much boiled down to a strong correlation between those that die and those with extremely punchable faces. Through the course of the 117-minute run time, we meet a handful of such side characters. Saju Rav, a henchman of Ovi’s father, is the textbook definition of what a Bollywood action hero would look like if directed by Americans. Ovi’s father also instructs Saju to protect his son, thereby becoming the largest helicopter parent in the India by having two armed mercenaries do one job. Saju eventually encounters Rake and engages in meaningless combat to save Ovi, making a mistake equivalent of not scrolling up to read the group chat history when you get 99 texts. 

Rake is portrayed as a no-nonsense killer with pretty much zero personality. Added to the fact that he had a child before his gun slinging career, maybe a “congrats on the sex” card would turn him into a softer, less violet human. Throughout the movie, Hemsworth’s character is the center of more action movie clichés than the amount of money in the Russo Brothers’ bank account. Rake doesn’t miss a single shot, always has the upper hand in a fist fight, and finds his way out of any situation better than a trust fund child shoplifting from J. Crew. 

The real kicker of this movie is when the producers attempted to turn their project into something that would compete for an Oscar. Cinematographers created what turned out to be a Walmart-esque rendition of the actually good movie 1917, by shooting a whole 5-minute car chase as one take. Honestly, the short take on this version is that it showed absolutely no sign of intelligent life, pretty much making the Fast and Furious movies look like the Sistene Chapel.

Final Thoughts – First, Netflix should make sure the rights to the word “Extraction” are locked in before Pornhub swoops in and commits highway robbery. Second, has nobody ever asked the Russo brothers to do a crossover with a Call of Duty Game, especially if they can come up with these dizzying action scenes. Third, Netflix REALLY doesn’t screw around when it comes to the R-rating on movies.

Rating – 1.5/5.0 – DON’T MAKE A SEQUEL! (dammit they already green-lit a sequel).