Extraction is a 2020 action-thriller, released on Netflix starring Chris Hemsworth (who more or less reprises his role as Thor from the Marvel series) in this pointless action flick. Extraction is one of those meaningless action movies, which could have served a greater purpose never being made. With a plot out of a comic book, it is basically a blood-filled, action movie with no real character development.
The plot of the movie follows Ovi Mahajan, the son of an imprisoned Indian drug-lord, who sneaks out of his mansion to go to a club where he gets kidnapped by men working for a rival drug lord Amir Asif and taken to Dhaka. Saju Rav (Randeep Hooda), a former Para Special Forces operator in the Indian Army and Ovi’s protector, informs Ovi’s father in prison about the kidnapping. Unwilling to pay the ransom as it will hurt his prestige, Ovi’s father, Ovi Mahajan Sr. orders Saju to retrieve his son, threatening Saju’s own family.
We are now introduced to the protagonist of the story, Tyler Rake (played by a disinterested Chris Hemsworth), who is supposedly a black-market mercenary and a former SASR operator. He is recruited by Nik Khan (some actress) to go to Bangladesh, find Ovi Mahajan and extract him out of the country. Rake and Khan’s team prepare to extract Ovi, with his father’s men set to pay them once Ovi is recovered. Rake rescues Ovi, killing his captors in a brutal fight, and takes him to the extraction point, but his Ovi’s father’s men intentionally fail to transfer the funds. Instead, Saju kills Rake’s teammates to bring Ovi back himself to avoid any payment to the mercenary group (basically confirming the Indian stereotype of not buying anything without a huge discount on the same). Learning of Ovi’s escape, Asif orders an immediate lockdown of Dhaka, securing all bridges out of the city, because apparently the entire Bangladeshi police and army is basically on a drug-lord’s payroll.
Tyler Rake, now remembers that he is the immortal God of Thunder and decides to take Ovi back to Mumbai, on his own, fighting the entire Bangladeshi police, SWAT and Army (we cannot really tell at this point) because that’s logical. Nik arranges for a helicopter to extract Rake outside the city and tells him to abandon Ovi as the extraction contract is now void. However, our hero refuses, haunted by memories of his own son, who died at a young age from lymphoma when he left (basically a way to explain Chris Hemsworth, continuously sour puss during the movie). After escaping Saju and the corrupt police and tactical units, Rake fights off a gang of boys led by a young criminal determined to impress Asif. Rake calls his friend Gaspar, a retired squad-mate living in Dhaka, and he and Ovi lay low at Gaspar’s home. Gaspar reveals Asif has placed a $10 million bounty on Ovi, which he offers to share if Rake allows him to kill Ovi. Rake refuses and fights Gaspar, who gains the upper hand but is fatally shot by Ovi.
Rake calls Saju and asks for his help, forcing them to team up to escape Dhaka. Rake draws attention away from a disguised Saju and Ovi as the two make their way through a bridge checkpoint, then follows to cover their escape. Khan and her remaining mercenaries approach from the opposite side of the bridge, as Asif watches from afar with binoculars.
What follows, is utter pandemonium. A chaotic and bloody firefight breaks out on the bridge with the ex-Indian Para SF operator and the ex-Australian SASR operative butchering whole squads of supposedly corrupt Bangladeshi police and tactical troopers. Again, borrowing from Rambo, apparently two highly trained soldiers can cause this much damage. Although, if I were a Bangladeshi police man watching this movie, I would be quite upset being portrayed as such a pathetic combat group.
In the ensuing firefight, Saju is sniped by Asif’s colonel, who is in turn sniped by Khan (justice served). Wounded, Rake instructs Ovi to run to Khan’s waiting helicopter. As Rake follows, he is shot in the neck by Farhad,young criminal leader of the gang of boys who had attacked Rake earlier and, seeing Ovi is safe, falls into the river. Ovi, Khan, and the extraction team escape to Mumbai.
We go forward eight months, where we see Khan killing Asif in a men’s restroom in a club. Ovi is seen jumping into his school’s swimming pool and surfaces to see a man resembling Rake watching him (basically to make sure an unnecessary sequel gets made).
The movie has some thrilling action sequences and for a lover of bloody fights, I enjoyed the action scenes and the fast-pace of events. However, that is all that I enjoyed in this movie. My love for logic did not allow me to truly accept this movie as an excellent action-thriller. Chris Hemsworth needed to bring a sense of humor to the carnage as he does with Thor but he did not. A brooding, constantly angry soldier he is not. Randeep Hooda is wasted and I am surprised that the movie’s budget did not allow for him to get a haircut which he desperately needed. The child actor playing Ovi Mahajan acts scared so basically he earns his pay. Watch The Extraction if you have run out of re-runs of better action movies or if you just want to see a whole lot of people die meaningless deaths. Avoid, if you do not want the headache from the explosions and the excess gore.
JAY’S VERDICT
Watch if you enjoy people being killed for no good reason and stuff blowing up.
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