EXTRACTION (2020)

Netflix’s latest hit movie is about a mercenary Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), who embarks on a mission to save the son of India's most notorious druglord Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) in a way that turns a whole city into a total warzone. The antagonist of this movie Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyulli) goes all the way including closing borders, arming kids and enforcing the military in trying to regain possession of the Ovi.

Ovi (left) and Tyler Rake (right)

POPCORN-O-METER = 7.2

For most parts Extraction is a great movie especially the first and third(final) portion of the movie. The action takes off from quite early on with Rake taking on a lot of kidnappers and uniformed men in what is a very John Wick-style fashion, intertwined with an about to quarter of an hour action sequence where Rake and Saju (played by Randeep Hooda: who is Ovi’s caretaker whilst his father is in prison) go at each other from a foot chase to a car chase, crashes, guns, grenades the scene had it all.

The mid portion really slows down as it has a lot of filler scenes with callbacks, a lengthy interrogation like set of questions that Ovi asks Rake so we get his quite pitiful but cliché back story and a brawl with Rakes old pal Gaspar (played by Netflix originals Stranger Things TV star David Habour).

Back to the action again for the final act where a battered Saju and Rake team up to face the Amir’s forces (if only they had dropped weapons and reasoned honestly with each other from the onset maybe it wouldn’t have been that painful for both. Guess they had to beat themselves half dead before they could finally reason). The final act is quite enjoyable with and ends up at a bridge where a blockade is set between Ovi, Rake, Saju and the extraction point and with a lot of firepower to boot i.e. machine guns, grenade launchers, rocket launchers and a long range rifle that eventually leads to the death of Saju and presumably Rake who takes one on the neck and falls into the river.

Extraction closes out with Rake’s employer Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani) and rescued Ovi seemingly dealing with Rake’s death by respectively killing Amir while looking as beautifully stunning as ever and the other jumping into a pool and submerging similar to the way we see Rake do earlier in the movie and when he’s shot with someone who looks like him watching poolside.

Finally, the movie was not bad at all in general, the action sequences and acting were very good. The plotline on the other hand was not as good and a bit cliché but okay. Maybe if the characters had better backstories and motives and Rake is actually dead it’d have scored more. Nonetheless, a good movie to watch during the lockdown.