Fresh from battling Thanos, Chris Hemsworth lays down Thor’s hammer and picks up a Rake in Netflix’s Extraction.
Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake. A mercenary who takes on a job liberating the kidnapped son of an Indian drug lord. Only to find himself double-crossed, team dead and city on lockdown. Rake must keep the boy and himself alive until they can get to the, you guessed it, extraction point.
This action thriller is brought to you by the team behind Avengers Endgame. Based on a graphic novel written Ande Parks and the Russo Brothers, it marks the directorial debut of stunt coordinator Sam Hargrave.
Hargrave has previously worked on all the Russo’s MCU films and the likes of Warrior and Atomic Blonde. He clearly knows his way around a fight scene and delivers some brutal but visually appealing action.
None better than a 12 minute single take sequence involving a car chase, hand-to-hand combat, gun fights and not one but two instances of people getting knocked over by vehicles. The action flows at breakneck (pardon the pun) speed. Delivered in such an accomplished way you will be scratching your head as to how they pulled it off.
The issue with such an impressive sequence coming at the start of act two is, where do you go from there. The film then allows its characters, and the audience, to catch their breath. However in doing so, it does lose some of its momentum. Hargrave expertly coordinates the action but a lacklustre script and lazy characterisation fail to hold attention.
The story is spread out over the course of two days but would have worked better if it had a condensed timeframe. Introduce a ticking clock element and have it play out in near real-time and this would have increased the tension and put the audience firmly in Tyler’s shoes.
Hemsworth does an admirable job as the stoic killer haunted by his past but it does miss his charm and wit. Not only is he facing off against an entire city but he is carrying the entire film on his (incredibly) broad shoulders. David Harbour brings some light relief in a cameo but the villains of the piece are too cliche and cookie cutter to provide any real threat or presence.
Extraction proves a welcome distraction during lockdown but is ultimately unable to escape its genre roots. Having said that, it is difficult not to enjoy a film where a man called Rake kills two men with a rake!
Extraction is available to stream on Netflix from April 27th.
Film Rating:
Director: Sam Hargrave
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Shivam Vichare
Runtime: 117 minutes
Country: USA
