Netflix’s ‘Extraction’ a showcase for Chris Hemsworth
Whatever is good about “Extraction” has nothing to do with the story, which is the usual thing, or the title, which suggests a trip to the dentist. It’s in the way the movie makes use of and supports Chris Hemsworth, who stars as a black-market mercenary on an insanely dangerous mission.
“Extraction,” which debuts on Netflix, is a big-scale action movie, which is typical for this time of year but is far from what we’ve been getting since the coronavirus made streaming the dominant mode of movie exhibition. It’s directed by Sam Hargrave, who has mainly worked as a stunt coordinator for huge action films such as “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Suicide Squad” and the last two “Avengers” movies.
In this one, Hemsworth plays a man who has done a lot of bad things. Like, a whole lot. As a soldier for hire, he has worked both sides of the moral fence and exists, in a spiritual sense, in the murky area of bestial survival. He has also suffered personal losses, and the psychic scars of those go deeper than all the rest.
And yet, so what, right? You’ve seen this before. All action heroes have a grieving past and a place inside where they’re not killing machines. What makes “Extraction” a little different — that is, different enough to be good —is that Hemsworth carries this history with him from scene to scene. It’s hard to say how he does it, but he somehow internalizes all this pain, so that we understand it and recognize it, even as he’s lobbing hand grenades.
Hemsworth is an interesting actor, who happens to be working in the wrong era for his talents. A few generations ago, American movies were built around guys like Hemsworth. Movies were tailored to a star’s personality and served as pretexts for contemplating this or that star’s uniqueness and meaning. To see “Extraction” is to realize Hemsworth is one of those guys, like a Clark Gable or a Willian Holden — a classic star, working in an unclassic time.
He plays a guy named Tyler Rake — the name is worth mentioning only because it’s even more ridiculous than usual — who takes on a crazy assignment. The son of an imprisoned drug lord has been kidnapped by a rival’s gang and taken to Bangladesh. Rake agrees to find the kid and get him out of there. The only complication is that there are hundreds of armed men in this gang, and the local police have been paid off. So, to succeed, Rake will have to kill about a hundred people, one by one, which could take all afternoon.
The rival drug lord (Priyhanshu Painyuli), incidentally, is a handsome man of refined manners, who eats dinner every night
in a palace, at a table shared by a half-dozen young women who all look terrified. He never raises his voice but is prone to saying things like, “Cut off two of your fingers. I suggest the left hand.” For most villains, one finger would be enough, but this guy is twice as bad.
Not surprisingly for a movie of this type, there are lots of scenes of violence, including hand-tohand combat. The fight choreography is exceptional. In the “John Wick” movies, the violence seems almost like a ballet. Here the fighting is just as intricate, but it seems like actual fighting, and Hemsworth seems like a person who’s actually doing it.
There’s also a cost. “Extraction” is bloody, which, in an odd way, makes it responsible.