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If this were a normal year, we’d be just a week away from the beginning of Summer Blockbuster Season. We’d be gearing up for a few months of big, noisy adventures at our favorite movie theater—and some of those action movies would already be showing up. But, since those big action movies are currently on hold, you can get your fix with Netflix’s Extraction.
Extraction stars Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake, an elite mercenary who lives in the Australian wilderness, where he’s nursing his own grief and loss. When a drug lord’s teenage son is kidnapped by a rival, Tyler is called in to handle the extraction. It’s a messy job—one that no one else would be crazy enough to take. And when he manages to find the boy, the job takes an unexpected twist, and they end up racing through the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh, to escape two different groups who are trying to get their hands on him.
The rest of the movie, then, is loaded with shaky chase scenes and deadly confrontations and a whole lot of explosions. It may have been written by regular Marvel contributor Joe Russo and helmed by Marvel stuntman Sam Hargrave—and it may star the guy who plays Thor—but this R-rated thriller is darker and more gruesome than the typical superhero crowd-pleaser. Hemsworth’s Tyler takes bullets and beatings on his quest to complete his mission—and he leaves a trail of bodies in his wake as he races through the streets with a frightened teenager in tow.
Admittedly, there isn’t a whole lot of story here—and what it does have isn’t especially new or surprising. Once everything is set up, it’s mostly a series of action sequences, occasionally allowing Tyler to catch his breath for a couple of minutes, to think about his next move, and perhaps to open up to the kid about his tragic past. Fortunately, though, Hemsworth still makes a likable hero—even when he isn’t swinging Thor’s hammer—and the crowded streets and apartment buildings of Dhaka give the action a fascinating setting. So if you’re in need of a little more excitement in your life while you’re stuck in quarantine, it’s a completely brainless yet explosive pick for your next movie night at home.
Extraction definitely isn’t the kind of blockbuster that you might be used to watching this time of year—and it doesn’t live up to the fun-filled action of Hemsworth’s Marvel movies. But if you’re already missing the big-budget theatrical releases of summer, this will at least give you a little bit of that adrenaline that you’re missing.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
