Extraction review: Despite tight action and camerawork, this action thriller falls short

Director: Sam Hargrave

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Randeep Hooda, Rudhraksh Jaiswal,Golshifteh Farahani

Score: 2.5

You would be forgiven for thinking Extraction was directed by Michael Bay, had you chosen to go in blind into this Chris Hemsworth-centred action thriller set in Dhaka. It has most of the Hollywood explosion maestro's trademarks: Guns shooting, grenades exploding and RPGs flying. However, it, like many of Bay's recent outings, is thin on character.

But this is not a Michael Bay film, this is a film directed by Sam Hargrave, who was stunt coordinator on Avengers: Endgame, and is written by Joe Russo. With that, you'd expect something to have equal parts story and action, but this is closer to peak Michael Bay, when his films actually had a semblance of coherency.

Netflix's latest original film is filled with a solid cast, putting Chris Hemsworth next to Randeep Hooda and Golshifteh Farahani as principal characters, each with a shared-yet-distinct agenda.

The story follows Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the son of India's biggest drug lord (Pankaj Tripathi in a small cameo), who is kidnapped by Bangladesh's biggest drug lord, Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli), and mercenary Tyler Rake (Hemsworth) is brought in with a deliberate plan to extract the kid.

Extraction's biggest failing is in how it treats its characters. Most of its principal characters gets little room to grow, with a brief exception for Tyler, while Amir is relegated to being a sideshow despite being the principal antagonist. In fact, his lackeys appear to be a bigger threat than him.

When it comes to action, Extraction hits the ground running, and in less than half an hour of opening, the film is already knee-deep in bullets flying and bodies getting ragdolled everywhere. Tyler, in his preoccupation of finishing his job, leaves behind a swath of corpses everywhere and gets into long corridor fights with Dhaka police, mostly ending with the Dhaka police not breathing anymore.

The film's direction and camerawork are mighty impressive, and leave few things to imagination. The violence is properly visceral, true to the 18+ rating of the film, and there is no shortage of cussing (though the film does get a little self-aware early on in a quick gag). Hargrave's style is clearly on full display as the director leaves no stone unturned in ensuring the action remains watertight.

However, Joe Russo's writing, as mentioned earlier, leaves a fair bit to desire. While Extraction does start quite nice with a knock-out punch for a starter, it slowly fizzles out through the rest of the 1 hour 57 minute runtime, rarely coming close to the first 10 minutes in terms of writing.

Fortunately, though, Russo does not waste any of his non-antagonist characters. Randeep Hooda's family-driven soldier Saju is a good opposite to Tyler's tragedy-driven no-nonsense mercenary, while Farahani's Nik, though in it for only a few minutes, is also given a reasonable motive and a moment to shine. It's just a shame none of the story has any real emotional weight to help balance things out.

To close, Extraction is a somewhat mixed bag. It's got solid action, ensuring it does not act tired or boring, but the weak story does pore through that veil, leaving a kind of empty feeling as the credits begin to roll.