Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Extraction’ on Netflix, an Action Movie in Which Chris Hemsworth Gets His ‘Bourne’ On

It seems like only a matter of time until people are aflutter about That One Scene in Extraction, the Netflix action film reuniting a few key names from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. One is star Chris Hemsworth, Thor himself. Two is writer and producer Joe Russo, co-director of Captain America: Winter Soldier, Civil War, Infinity War, and Endgame. And finally is director Sam Hargrave, who was Chris Evans’ Captain America stunt double and Endgame‘s second-unit director — and who pulls off a crazy action sequence here, proving he’s a filmmaker to be reckoned with.

EXTRACTION: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: I can sum up the plot in 21 words: Tyler (Hemsworth) is a total badass hired to “extract” a drug lord’s son from a kidnapper. It doesn’t go as planned. Need more than that? Honestly, you don’t. But I’ll extrapolate anyway.

Tyler Rake drinks and he kills people. Scratch that — Tyler Rake drinks and he pops Oxycontin and he kills people. There’s some kind of PTSD death wish stew bubbling inside his skull, and lives in a shack in Australia which, despite the state of his mental health, amazingly isn’t cluttered with empty Chinese-takeout containers and liquor bottles, unlike the depressing hovels the Punisher and various Liam Neeson characters live in. He ain’t got a thing to lose. Which makes Tyler’s job of arming himself and running headlong into sticky situations that much easier. He can kill you with a coffee mug. He will put a rake in your face, not like Sideshow Bob, but pointy end first. He will GRAB your balls and PULL.

About that job: DATELINE: MUMBAI: Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the teenage son of India’s most notorious drug czar, Ovi Sr. (Pankaj Tripathi), is snatched by Bangladeshi rival czar Amir Asif (Prianshu Painyuli) and held for ransom. Who can extract the hell out of young Ovi from a hell of a heavily guarded hellhole? Tyler Rake, that’s who. So Ovi Sr. hires him to do just that. And then old man Ovi sends his security chief, Saju (Randeep Hooda), to do the same for 100 percent less money — maybe for backup purposes, possibly to save some dough and most likely to make the movie more exciting by giving the protagonist an ex-Special Forces mutha to tango with. Tyler straps on a few machine guns, jams some pistols in his pants, sticks extra clips of ammo in his ears, loads his boots with knives and feet, and drops a few dozen grenades in his jock, and heads to Dhaka to pay some hell.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The good Bournes, John Wick, the last four Mission: Impossibles. Oh, and Atomic Blonde, for which Hargrave worked as a fight choreographer, and also featured the type of long-take action sequence that makes you giggle with glee at its sheer audacity and extraordinary kinetics. (Be thankful the rest of this movie is far more coherent than the rest of Atomic Blonde.)

Performance Worth Watching: Stranger Things guy David Harbour drops in to chew a few scenes, and is a nice, showy foil for Hemsworth’s buttoned-up brooding.

Memorable Dialogue: Tyler sums up a recent exchange with some of Amir’s child gangbangers: “We just got attacked by the Goonies from hell.”

Sex and Skin: No time for love, Dr. Jones.

Our Take: I’ve come to the conclusion that indulgent virtuoso filmmaking — e.g., the 12-minute one-shot car chase/foot chase/fistfight/gunfight/car chase again sequence at the heart of Extraction — is best when the movie isn’t about important stuff, because it tends to distract from that stuff. One-take wonder 1917 was a feat and then some, but the feat renders the movie more about itself than the horrors of World War I, and the feat is the sole reason for it to exist because it thematically resembles so many other war movies. Technique preceded story.

Extraction goes for maximum direction, minimal story, just more than minimal character. It’s plenty. (Compare it to a Michael Bay picture, which is maximum everything until you just want to die.) It presents a couple pretty compelling questions early on: How many times can one man get hit by a car and still walk, run, punch, kick, shoot, stab and snap spines? And why are the bad guys’ sights always off in these movies? The correct answers: Who cares, and stop being a pedant. Hargrave stages and choreographs action with the superlative skill, patience and spatial awareness possessed by few filmmakers of this ilk. Watch how his camera flows in and out of car windows and to the hood and to the trunk and to the other car in the chase, and then wonder how he did it at speeds barely this side of breakneck. He’s willing to take the art of the headshot further than most. And then he has the gall to indulge some poetic flourishes at the end. He’s good.

Our Call: STREAM IT. We live in a post-John Wick and M:I: Fallout world, so the bar has been set high. Extraction deserves to be mentioned in the same breath.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Extraction on Netflix