Extraction: Aussie mercenary Chris Hemsworth also plays one in an empty, bombastic Netflix action film

By Liam Lacey

Rating: C 

Early in David Foster Wallace's novel, Infinite Jest, a character prepares for an anxiety-ridden four-day marijuana binge, stocking up on junk food and antacids, and movies, "in which a lot of things blew up and crashed into each other," which "had implications that were not good."  

I thought of that while undergoing the sensory bombardment of Extraction, the new Netflix action movie (April 24) starring the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Thor, Chris Hemsworth, as an Aussie mercenary tasked with heading to India to rescue a druglord's kidnapped son.  About 90 percent of the movie involves running, crashing, bone-breaking, shooting, punching and tossing out of windows, and the remaining 10 per cent is composed of threats, plot twists and sentimental backstory. 

Chris Hemsworth doing what he does on the streets of Dhaka in Netflix’s Extraction

Extraction is the directorial debut of stunt supervisor,  Sam Hargrave, who worked on the Avenger films. It was written by Joe Russo (Avengers: Endgame) from a graphic novel, Ciudad, and co-produced with his brother, Anthony. The siblings have fairly defined the current state of blockbuster filmmaking with Marvel’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. 

But if Avengers is indebted to backstory, Extraction, by contrast, is unburdened by psychology or character context.

When we first meet Hemsworth's character, Tyler Rake, he's a drunken pill-popping recluse and black-market mercenary, living in the Australian outback. Somehow, he musters the motivation to take on a new assignment. His mission: to fly to the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka to rescue a teen-aged boy, Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of Ovi Sr. an imprisoned Indian drug lord (Pankaj Tripathi) who has been kidnapped by the dastardly Bangladeshi child-killing Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli).  

The plot develops quickly, leading to the film's piece-de-resistance, a 12-minute single take (sort of) sequence, of whip-pans, Steadicam excursions through stairwells and apartment buildings, a couple of car chases and lots of broken bodies,  culminating, predictably,  in an overhead shot of a gas-ball explosion.  

There is, sort of, a plot, by which we mean take-a-breath chunks of exposition wedged between fights and chases. Actress Golshifteh Farahani (Paterson) appears from time to time as Tyler's beautiful dispatcher, whose role is mainly to drop nuggets of exposition and plot summaries: “Biggest drug lord in India versus biggest drug lord in Bangladesh.” Or: “You’re hoping if you spin the chamber enough times, you’re gonna catch a bullet,”

Stranger Things' David Harbour pops up for a couple of scenes as a fellow mercenary of ambiguous motives. But mostly, there's a gauntlet of people to be shot, snapped, stabbed and tossed off balconies. That's before we reach the climactic bridge scene (shot in Thailand) where we bring in the helicopters and rocket launchers.

Hargrave also was the stunt co-ordinator for the sensational Charlize Theron film, Atomic Blonde, but there are significant differences. The fight scenes here spread out across the movie, and while the fight choreography is cleanly executed and well-shot, Hemsworth, with his Thor-like bulk, is less an underdog than a human bulldozer. There’s little sense of jeopardy, which makes the parade of violence nothing more than a detached spectator sport, with implications that are not good. 

Extraction. Directed by Sam Hargrave. Written by Joe Russo, based on the graphic novel Ciudad. Starring Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Golshifteh Farahani, Pankaj Tripathi, David Harbour. Extraction appears on Netflix on April 24.