Chris Hemsworth(Tyler Rake) stars in this rapid action film, which is something of a Mission impossible meets slumdog millionaire with Thor raining down hell with machine guns non stop!
It has those crazy unsuspecting scenes with bullets flying everywhere, people dying left right and center.
And, well, so much Bengali(Bangla) that it will make any Bengali super proud to see Chris even trying poorly but trying none the less to speak a few words of this beautiful language.
Is It Worth Watching?
It’s the right blockbuster to blow you out of the lockdown laziness and get you a serious adrenaline dose! Although, it does lack a plot or a narrative or even decent scripting writing.
Extraction Review
Chirs Hemsworth is known to play solid action roles in his movies, and in this case, he teams up with Sam Hargrave, the stuntman from his earlier Marvel movies, to do just that.
A Bollywood Parody?
The storyline is almost Bollywood-ish in so many ways, even though this is actually based on a graphic novel that was written and is now adapted by “Avengers: Endgame”s co-director Joe Russo.
One can’t help but feel this was a special vanity project planned on some sort of a Bollywood Action formula – green light by the Netflix team keeping in mind a predominantly South Asian audience.
A handpicked eclectic Bollywood cast (Pankaj Tripathi as Ovi Mahajan senior, Randeep Hooda as Saju, Ex Indian Special Forces). A few low budget Hollywood extras –- one medium-scale Hollywood name(David Harbour as Gasper) and one big Superstar — Yours Truly Chris Hemsworth — Thor!
Does it feel like a Salman Khan production already?
P.S: If they got it right, it could be the next Slumdog Dabangg (Salman Khan — Bollywood inside joke) or the likes of that.
Plot Review & Recap
The plot is quite run of the mill — There is an attempt to build this extensive backstory between two of the biggest Drug lords.
One is the biggest drug lord from India — Ovi Mahajan(Pankaj Tripathi), who literary has a 5-minute cameo and is currently in an Indian Prison.
The other is the Pablo Escobar of Bangladesh — Amir Asif(Priyanshu Painyuli) — who is Mr. Bling Bling living lavishly and man about town.
Now, Ovi Mahajan’s son gets kidnapped by Asif as they have some age-old rivalry.
Note: All of this is not really dealt in detail and is pretty 90s TV Show crap being played out in a hurry. Walks in Saju(Randeep Hooda), who is Ovi Mahajan’s man Friday, and is held responsible for his son’s security lapse and consequent abduction.
Ovi Mahajan threatens Saju’s family if he doesn’t ensure that his son, Ovi Mahajan Jr., is rescued safely.
Saju figures the only way to do this is to hire that one man for the job. Not Ethan Hunt — because he’s way too expensive and his own Mission Impossible 8 is delayed due to COVID. So our next best blonde Superhero — Chris Hemsworth(Tyler Rake), is an ex-army man.
Now, a mercenary(gun for hire) with an Achilles heel [with his own sad history] is hired to rescue the kid. Something goes wrong with the plan, and finally, Tyler is left with a decision to leave the child behind or save him.
His past catches up with him [as a blurry image of his son who died of Lymphoma], and he decides he has to save Ovi Mahajan Junior. He fights a tonne of slumdog militia men — scores of teenagers and kids who he doesn’t kill, only slap around — it’s quite funny actually, almost like my mommy thwacking me while I was growing up.
Then, he lands up in a sewer and calls on an old buddy called Gasper(David Harbour), who just shows up in an SUV, puts them in the trunk, and takes them both home.
After almost 30 mins of pretty cool non-stop action and atleast a hundred thousand Bangladeshi policemen and gang hooligans being killed, not to mention perhaps two dozen vehicles being rammed over, turned or just straight up annihilated. The phone call to Gasper appeared a 5-minutes wait for an Uber-like pick-up.
They go back to Gasper’s place to have a few drinks when Tyler realizes that Gasper has double-crossed him and has made a deal for 10 million dollars with Asif for the Ovi Jr.
There’s a struggle between them, and eventually, Tyler is about to be killed by Gasper when the boy shoots Gasper in the chest twice.
[In Chandler’s voice…]Could it BE MORE Bollywood than that!
About 10 mins before all of this, there’s even an emotional bonding scene between the Ovi and Chris, where the boy gives him advice: “You drown not by falling into the river but by staying submerged in it.”
Yup — that happens. Super Corny. Super Slumdog Dabangg!
Post this, Chris decides he needs some help and calls Saju — the old enemies are now best friends with a cause — Saju tells him if he doesn’t get the kid back, Ovi will kill his family too.
Suddenly, everyone’s a good guy, yet working for gangsters. Interesting moral dilemma.
Now the movie stands at a situation where the Extraction team is at the other end of the town and across a bridge before which are two major blockades.
Tyler stays back to create a diversion, and Saju heads out with Ovi. He successfully crosses the first blockade. While crossing the second one, their covers are blown, and all hell breaks loose.
This is that Rambo finale we expect from a Chris Hemsworth movie. Lots of guns blazing, loads of people dying, bazookas, and helicopters with flying bullets, and yet Tyler battles them all.
There’s even a sniper who is eventually killed by Tyler’s back-up — Nikki, who is like a younger version of handler ‘M’ from James Bond but knows how to shoot a bazooka(cool for a minute).
Saju dies trying to get the kid across. Chris makes it to the bridge from the diversion. He shoots his way, killing almost everyone, until that moment when one of the teenager goon he had slapped and didn’t kill — shoots him in the neck.
He gasps for breath – holds his wound tight, and jumps off the bridge. Oh Lord, how the might fall.
8 months later, Ovi Mahajan Junior limps back to normalcy as a school student. He is seen diving into a pool where he stays submerged at the bottom, holding his breath — which is like a re-enactment of Tyler jumping from a cliff at the beginning of the movie and meditating at the depths of the lake.
Ovi surfaces with a blurry vision – with a man standing at a distance, which resembles Tyler.
Perhaps for sequel purposes, another Extraction 2 coming soon? My vision is blurry too. I need to sleep.
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