Extraction

In an ideal world, it would be John Wick meets The Raid with a touch of The Punisher... but hey. The first one lacks greater action exaggeration, although there is nothing to complain about with regard to most of the fights and shooting, and the film has a top stunt show-reel. Compared to Gareth Evans and his group of Indonesian suicidal people, Extraction never quite takes your breath away. Hemsworth looks good on the field, but he also carries with him a mediocre back story and a lot of boyish tenderness, which is not very believable, even though I like the guy and enjoy every one of his Instagram posts. There is only one expert on this deadly tenderness deal, and that is Joe Bernthal. I would have given it a higher score had it not been for the blatantly stupid finale and the fact that Bangladeshi Ivan Jonák should have been given more space. Thank you, BTW, for the scene with the beating of children. After a month of quarantine, it’s solidly cathartic. P. S. If someone from Netflix reads this (and they certainly will), shoot the author of the translation in the foot and pay for a proper translator. This man is a fraud and does not need to be rescued, but rather deboned. (04/24/2020)

Thanks to being set in a convincingly dirty environment, Liam Hemsworth's muscle mass, and the fantastic pace where one attraction is swapped out for another, the adventures of the hero with the super tough name Tyler Rake landed in terms of mood one or two classes more higher than the much praised and often compared John Wick. The combination of mercenaries, the desperate fates of children of soldiers of fortune, and the action-packed aspects polished to the last cut compensate for the fact that this does not offer (nor does it seek to offer) anything new to the classical screenplay. (05/21/2020)

Who gives a crap about a more sophisticated script – that’s not my issue here – but this is merely two hours of systematically emptying bottomless clips without any display of emotion whatsoever. But what about the praises sung on this site about the 15-minute “continuous take”?  Well, when you make clever use of cuts (by zooming into macro details for an instant, right in the face) and unnoticeable dissolves, you can fill an entire feature-length film with such takes (just ask Sam Mendes), though it is of course all an illusion, even though it looks cool. To sum up, this is nothing new under the sun, just another yawn-inducing flick no one will remember three months from now. (04/29/2020)

Extraction has an indisputably significant place on the notional chart of trends in the action genre. This dot chart, marked out in one plane by unbridled low-budget action movies with athletic, ready-for-anything actors and in the opposite by constrained Hollywood big-budget productions with stars, shows us in the points the emphasis on action as an attraction and the evocation of the wow effect by the physical dimension. In this definition, however, Extraction is not an essential or revolutionary milestone. Rather, the very fact that it appeared on that notional chart further reinforces the hope that better times are ahead for the action genre in Hollywood. Sam Hargrave emerges from this as a good and likable apprentice of the 87eleven stunt school and stands somewhere between his masters Chad Stahelski and David Leitch. But Hemsworth is neither Keanu Reeves nor Tom Cruise, so he obviously does not have years of training or personal commitment under his belt. Therefore, his director and choreographer have to come up with gimmicks such as one seeming long shot that is digitally stitched together, which, with its obvious transitions, only brings to mind the ambitions of filmmakers from the lower budget categories, but who gain greater fondness through their greater tenacity despite the production conditions (in, for example, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning) or honest craftsmanship (such as in Jailbreak). And that’s not to mention projects that still remain unsurpassed today, where physical action and directorial craft achieve the ideal synergy, us as in The Raid 2. ____ Extraction is a fine contribution to the genre that shows Netflix’s potential, but also its real face as a video rental company. And that will perhaps remain the primary benefit of this project. Netflix is surprisingly consistent in bringing the schizophrenic “VoD video rental” label to mind. Although it will never achieve the pampered selection and community function that carefully curated autonomous video rental shops offered, it needs a regular supply of shiny new products, following the example of the major chains. In the best case, they will attract viewers to the more out-of-the-way sections, where they will discover not unique gems, but a bunch of other genre flicks that will compel them not to cancel their subscriptions. So, if you find yourself in these nooks and crannies because of Netflix’s recommendations, have a look at some of the films mentioned above. However, after these years of shakycams and CGI colouring books that completely lack a physical dimension, we can once again look forward to the coming development. It even makes one want to talk about the renaissance of the action genre. (05/16/2020)

Little buggers. Chris Hemsworth beats Indian kids! With top-notch action scenes driven by a straightforward plot from an unknown comic book, Extraction benefits mainly from the mad verve of director Sam Hargrave, who didn’t hesitate to tie himself to the top of a car with a camera to get the desired result. And really the one-shot car chase in the Benz through a hostile Dhaka makes the film worth watching again and again. Kids with Kalashnikovs on every street corner, dirt, blood and slit throats stay the course set by Wick. The future of action movies is not rosy, it’s blood red! (04/24/2020)