"Extraction" is "John Wick: Man on Fire" in India

Netflix movies are getting better, guys.

I say that personally with a grain of salt because there are still a lot of them I haven’t watched yet, but between the ones I have watched and the general consensus from others on the ones I haven’t, the belief has been that they haven’t quite lived up to theatrical motion picture quality in an aesthetic or technical sense. Yes they have bigger Hollywood actors and writers and yes their budgets are getting larger, but it just feels like something is missing, whether it’s a story problem, weaker dialogue or visual effects that don’t hold up to “freeze frame” scrutiny.

Extraction is one of those cases where it feels like the movie was released in a theater first and then came to Netflix after its run was finished. If you didn’t know it was a Netflix original, you wouldn’t think it was a straight to streaming film……and that’s GREAT news, because it means the subjective line is starting to go away.

To begin with, this is a movie that quickly reminded me of other movies I enjoy, most notably Man on Fire, starring Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning, and John Wick, starring Keanu Reeves. The story is very much Man on Fire with a young son of an imprisoned Indian drug lord being kidnapped for ransom and humiliation by a powerful Bangladesh drug lord. A black market mercenary team is contracted to rescue him and in the process of getting him out of the city, its leader struggles to keep himself and the boy alive while being hunted by drug lords, other boys recruited by the syndicate, and the police force itself.

To put it simply, Extraction is an action movie that knows it’s an action movie and takes great care to take that responsibility seriously. This isn’t a film that requires a general audience-level sense of humor or an extreme suspension of disbelief. It’s gritty, grounded and at times brutal in its execution, and while it’s not a fun-loving romp of a time for the family, it manages to convey a message of hope for those involved in the midst of very bleak times for the main characters.

This is where I mention the lead, Chris Hemsworth, who plays Tyler Rake, the mercenary with a seeming death wish and nothing to lose that is tasked with keeping the boy Ovi alive. From the moment we meet his character, we know he’s off kilter in a bad way and he might just be content to jump in the water on his own and never swim to the surface because it’s easier to be dead at this point. Something happened to him of course, which is teased to us in blurry flashbacks throughout the film, but he’s still got a sense of duty and devotion to doing what needs to be done so he can get paid. It’s when things go haywire that we have to buy his connection with Ovi, played by Rudraksh Jaiswal, as genuine enough for him to not cut bait at the first sign of trouble and instead do all he can to keep him alive.

For me, they absolutely sold it and here’s how without spoilers: they set the scene very well for us to understand the stakes and the emotions involved from all the characters. I already mentioned what we learn about Rake from the beginning and the same is true with Ovi, who is caught in the crossfire of a drug war he wants no part of, in a world that is desperately trying to rope young boys like him right into the mix on a daily basis. He’s the fortunate kid that has a bankroll and private schools to insulate him from the nightmare, but when it pulls him into it by force, he has to draw strength from Rake’s efforts and what he knows is right and wrong on his own to get through the numerous attempts on his life. This isn’t communicated in the film hastily or lazily either, we get the development, the reflective moments where there’s no shooting, fighting or explosions and the dialogue and emotional performances take center stage.

To our benefit, Hemsworth and Jaiswal are very good in these moments and they are aided by a solid script from Joe Russo. Yes, that Joe Russo that co-directed Avengers: Endgame with his brother Anthony. This is their first “big” project in a production sense since their “exit” from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it’s a personal project since Extraction is based off the graphic novel Ciudad, written by Ande Parks and the Russos in 2014. That was a big selling point for me to watch this one because I want to see what their post-MCU work is like, and given how this movie looked I was expecting something closer to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Extraction IS much closer to that film than any other the Russos made for Marvel Studios, but again it’s far more gritty and grounded in a sense of third-world reality than any other comic book film they’ve ever done.

I haven’t mentioned the part that felt like John Wick yet, but it should be obvious. The action and the fight choreography in particular. There are times in this movie where Rake is in “Wick mode” with his gunplay and close quarters combat, and some of the other non-gun kills are very emblematic of the ones in the Wick franchise as well. That was great to see because it’s a style of action choreography that comes from Hollywood stunt people who are technically proficient in the craft, and it’s nice that it’s holding serve in other action movies now outside of the Wick or Atomic Blonde films.

A BIG reason that’s the case here is because the film’s director, Sam Hargrave, IS a longtime Hollywood stuntman and worked on the Marvel films the Russos made, so he’s absolutely following the same path as David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, the stuntmen turned directors of John Wick and Atomic Blonde. Seriously, we’re at a point where more action movies directed by former stuntmen are becoming a great thing because it is elevating the whole genre of action films to a consistently strong level in recent years. The biggest sequence in the film that is by far the most ambitious point of the movie is the “one-take” chase sequence toward the middle part of the film where Rake and Ovi are doing all they can to avoid murderers from just about every direction in the middle of the city. It’s not a true one-shot as it’s numerous shots composited together to form one unbroken sequence, but it’s REALLY well done and put together and plays well with tension and drama mixing into the action of the sequence. In fact, parts of it reminded me of a third movie I truly enjoy that has a fantastic one take sequence involving a car: Children of Men, starring Clive Owen.

Like the John Wick films, Extraction’s budget wasn’t even close to breaking the bank. $65 million, and it was spent VERY well on what was needed in terms of equipment, locations and visual effects. This movie looks really good and the attention to detail paid by Hargrave and crew absolutely pays off here. There is very much a market for these kinds of films being made like this and when you have strong stories and casting behind them, they can be gold for streamers going forward.

I want to call attention to the rest of the cast to highlight something I greatly appreciated about Extraction, and that is the international cast that made this movie feel like a genuine foreign film at times. Yes there are subtitles, but not for the entire film and having these characters speak in the right languages instead of strictly sticking to English the whole time was a excellent move. This film was shot on location in parts of Mumbai, Thailand and Bangladesh and it doesn’t feel forced. This is a living, breathing real-world situation these characters are in and it adds so much, especially given all of the Indian actors like Randeep Hooda, who was awesome, and Golshifteh Farahani who played a great support character on Rake’s team, and certainly Priyanshu Painyuli as Amir, the cold and sadistic drug lord that runs his entire empire from his palace but manages to stay away from being completely one note in the film.

I also have to give praise to Newton Thomas Sigel, the Director of Photography for a excellent job, and the combined talents of Henry Jackman, who has also worked with the Russos in the MCU, and Alex Belcher on a strong orchestral score for this film.

Extraction is REALLY good, guys. Right now it’s the best Netflix film I’ve seen and yes, there are quite a few that I need to see, but this is a great sign of things to come for the future of streaming films if this can set a tone for how serious they will be taken going forward. Another win for Netflix, the current streaming king.