Extraction is a 2020 action film about a mercenary type who is called in to rescue a kidnapped boy, only to find himself up against an army of thugs looking to steal the same prize.
Sam Hargrove‘s feature length directorial debut is very close to his heart, spawning from a home he’s quite familiar with. As a stunt coordinator on dozens upon dozens of films all the way back to 2005 on titles such as The Avengers series, The Wolverine, The Hunger Games, and many many more, you get a sense that his latest project is not so much a vehicle to promote the acting chops of his muscular hero but rather wring him through a cavalcade of ambitious punch and run moments unlike what most have ever seen before. And by golly, that’s what we get.
If you don’t know Extraction, skip over to our review of the film. There you’ll notice that we pretty much fall in line with most critics, suggesting that the movie is a solid adventure that keeps adrenaline junkies lapping up the goodies while leaving those longing for something to connect with seriously lacking. I can’t deny that I myself am torn a bit, finding the core of the film considerably derivative but the momentum fascinatingly addictive. It’s like a can of Coke. It tastes good, you kinda crave it, but ultimately, it’s a letdown and you wish you’d just gotten the herbal tea.
I frame it like this: If Steven Seagal were hitting his stride today, this is the kind of movie he’d be making, and in fact, this film, if you were to simply swap out a pretty young women for the taken boy would be a carbon copy of just about anything he did in his heyday. Nonetheless, I’m not here to quibble about the movie itself. More so, I’m not here to discuss how one of the most mesmerizing action sequences in recent times came to fruition or the way it was made either. Plenty of sites are already devoting words to Hargrove’s remarkable achievement, which deserves praise (this is an exceptionally well-made movie), even if there’s a bit of slipperiness going on in trying to disguise the long shot as a single take when it’s clearly not. But who cares? What matters is how the execution of the moment full on does what it intends and makes it one helluva reason to give this movie a look.
To set it up, we see the violent and tragic kidnapping of a school boy named Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of a dangerous drug lord, who is already in jail. Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), a black-market mercenary and more than qualified for such things (he dives from cliffs and then sits yoga-style in the water), is tasked with bringing the kid home. He heads to Bangladesh along with his crew to crash the secret location where the boy is kept, slicing and dicing their way to the supposed extraction site, only to learn that things aren’t as they seem (gulp, no one saw that coming). Skip a bit of story and we find Tyler on the run alone with the boy, looking for a way to get out of the country while a growing horde of killers, corrupt cops, and betrayal hunt him mercilessly.
That puts Tyler in the congested housing and market district of the crowded Dhaka, the mercenary first in a lengthy car chase that then switches to a fierce fistacuffs and close quarters gun battle in the tight hallways and balconies of the grimy city. I just summarized in one sentence what takes over twelve minutes to unfold and all of it, in no uncertain terms, is an absolute rush to soak in. Seriously. The vehicle sequence is mostly seen from inside Tyler’s car and it’s visually distressing as he swerves and cuts his way through tight streets and back alleys stuffed with people going about their day. The way Hargrove uses his camera to direct us to the next bit is thrilling and clever, leaving you often wondering, how the heck did they do that? The precision of the choreography is hard not to take notice of but it’s so well done in hitting new beats of a tired cliché, you can’t help but perk up while watching, feeling a genuine sense of awe in how, well, driven the momentum is. This is great fun you suddenly realize yourself thinking.
Then, just when you think it’s over, it’s only just begun as they escape their cars and head for the houses and apartments, leading us through a dizzying maze of crooked hallways, through tiny rooms, over precarious ledges and up and down steep stairs, all peppered with cops and one equally well-trained operative (Randeep Hooda) on a mission himself to stop Tyler dead in his tracks. In what is presented as a mind-melting single long cut, we fall out of windows, get hit by cars, stand toe-to-toe with knives, guns, kicks and fists, all thrown at us with a furious passion for destruction that is presented like a finely tuned ballet with actors and stunt crew showing off hundreds of hours of rehearsal in delivering what amounts to be twelve of the best danged action moment you can currently stream on your sofa. It’s truly an elevating moment in a movie that has gobs of energy but no heart.
And so what? Extraction isn’t about the emotions, even as a few moments try and trick you into thinking it is. It’s about the title and the determination of one man in seeing that done, driven by a personal demon that haunts him to do so. Absolutely that feels tacky, even typing it feels so, and it’s handled just as such, making the small bits between the action feel rather gooey and obvious. I was about to write that this is a shame, but it’s really not. Hargrove is unapologetic in his style and execution, planting his intentions like a red flag atop the action genre, announcing that his movie is about the stunts, something that has a long tradition in film history where intentional mediocre stories are bolstered by amazing set pieces. Even those with Steven Seagal.