Chris Hemsworth has an easygoing charisma that works well on the big screen, but despite his obvious physical presence, I’ve always found him to be a better comedic actor than an action star. To be sure, he does fine as an action hero, but he just seems to do comedy better. His humorous side belies an action hero exterior, and his best roles seem to take advantage of his general silliness.
But his latest, Extraction, released directly to Netflix, is a pure action flick, so how did it work out?
Hemsworth stars as Tyler Rake, a former Australian special forces officer turned mercenary. He and his team get a job: an imprisoned crime lord in Mumbai’s son has been kidnapped by a rival crime boss. Rake and his people have been asked to get the boy back in order to avoid a loss of face for the boss. Granted, the rival seems to control half the city, including its law enforcement. But that’s pretty standard for a movie like this.
“Standard” more or less describes everything about this movie. In terms of plot, aside from maybe the setting, it isn’t all that different from any number of American action movies. Hemsworth’s Rake is a moody man of few words with a sad backstory. He takes it upon himself to protect a kid as he transports the child across half the city as all kinds of criminals and law corrupt law enforcement types try to bring them in. True, the action scenes work out fantastically. That can be checked up to first time director Sam Hargrave, a longtime stuntman and fight choreographer. But no one seems to be having any fun here, with the possible exception of David Harbour ina small role as a former mercenary friend of Hemsworth’s. But, quite frankly, I could easily see Keanu Reeves in the Tyler Rake role. That’s how more or less interchangeable he is in that he could just as easily be John Wick. Rake, and Hemsworth’s portrayal of him, is just so grim at all times. A little bit of Hemsworth’s more lighthearted side could have made the character a little less generic even if it would have been more of a callback to the action flicks of the 80s and 90s.
That said, the action scenes in this one are fantastic, particularly a long single-shot style sequence that follows Rake and the boy as they flee various armed antagonists, the camera zipping in and out of various moving cars and following different characters when Rake and the kid ditch the car to try hiding in an apartment complex. I doubt anyone will care how original a character Tyler Rake turns out to be if all they want is to see him get into a shoot-out, knife-fight, and fist-fight against multiple opponents all during the same sequence. As such, if all you want is some good action scenes, something like Extraction will work out fine. If you want something more than that, you may be out of luck.
Grade: C+
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