Extraction - Cheap Thoughts

Extraction is reminiscent of your typical 90s action flick. That’s the best sentence that can be made to describe this film, its plot is bareboned, its villain lacks even the slightest bit of charisma, character or purpose; even the bright hot orange tinge in the visuals calls similarities to films of that decade. All of this is to say Extraction is nothing special, but it is perfectly functional; a specialty of the Netflix original movies to make those films that can kill a couple of hours of your life with an above mediocre movie.

The debut of director Sam Hargrave, a man who originates from the world of stunt co-ordination by no surprise commits a lot of the effort of the film to the practical stuntwork and attempts to stretch the creative muscles with elongated sequences of clear choreographed fight scenes, including a drawn out 10 minute sequence stylized to appear as one continuous shot that admittedly carries the momentum throughout with solid camerawork and rehearsed action to make it entertaining, but lacks the refinement or experience to make it engrossing. The stitches from when one shot ends and another begins are clearly visible and action is palatable but nothing that makes it distinct; it shares more in common with The CW’s Arrow than it does John Wick.

Another attempt to bring some level of gravitas to the film is Rudhraksh Jaiswal performance as Ovi, the young victim of the gang war that he’s at the centre of, being forced into traumatic situation after traumatic situation that emotionally wounds him. There is a common theme amongst the characters of fatherhood, Chris Hemsworth’s character Tyler is mournful over the death of his son and his inaction on the situation, as well as a seeming rival played by Randeep Hooda who also fights to protect his own son’s life. The film certainly gains points in its favour for allowing these moments of fragility in its ensemble while a lesser movie would have simply left it at a shallow level and hope the mindless action was enough. It’s not a complex or in-depth theme but it’s present enough to earn praise for.

The film comes out with more strong elements than weaker, and coming in at a solid 100 minutes makes it a reasonable runtime, not overstaying its welcome even if individual scenes might, such as the aforementioned 10 minute fight scene. The film is competent, it’s the simplest way to describe it. There’s a perfectly functioning body of a movie here without any defining attributes to make it distinct or memorable. Then again considering most people are finding themselves with a lot more free time these days, the adequate time-killer has never seemed more appealing, and this is absolutely their time to shine, even if said shine isn’t as bright as you might hope.

-Danny