Extraction
Year: 2020
Director: Sam Hargrave
Starring: Chris Hemsworth
Runtime: 117 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 01/05/20 (Legacy Review)
Director: Sam Hargrave
Starring: Chris Hemsworth
Runtime: 117 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 01/05/20 (Legacy Review)
The success of John Wick was always going to bring about its imitators, a new breed of action films directed by stuntmen that really understand how to make stunningly choreographed, brutally violent fight sequences look incredible on camera. Whilst Netflix’s Extraction is certainly that kind of film, it brings with it a greater level of brutality that John Wick has yet to quite achieve, but also falls back on sloppy shaky cam far too often.
Extraction follows Chris Hemsworth’s retired soldier turned mercenary as he executes a plan to extract a valuable teenage boy out of a gang war between two drug lords. The story is nothing special and is really just there as set dressing for all the action, which is fine when the action is this good. Extraction also pulls punches rarely seen in mainstream film, on screen execution and torture of children for one, and as a result the level of graphic violence on display may be enough to turn some viewers off.
The story is also given way too much attention, it’s incredibly barebones but stretched out to pad the runtime to 2 hours. If you cut out all of the nonsense that really doesn’t relate to the events of the film this would have been a tightly paced hour and a half thrill-ride that didn’t overstay it’s welcome. It really tries to go for some emotional scenes too, which ultimately fall flat on their face with wooden acting and stunted dialogue. In short if you’re ok with some really brutal but expertly choreographed fight scenes, and some graphic, bloody violence, then Extraction is exactly what you need to tide you over until John Wick 4, but it’s a shame that the camera work wasn’t as clean as John Wick’s and that the extremely basic story was given far more screen time than it deserved.
Extraction follows Chris Hemsworth’s retired soldier turned mercenary as he executes a plan to extract a valuable teenage boy out of a gang war between two drug lords. The story is nothing special and is really just there as set dressing for all the action, which is fine when the action is this good. Extraction also pulls punches rarely seen in mainstream film, on screen execution and torture of children for one, and as a result the level of graphic violence on display may be enough to turn some viewers off.
The story is also given way too much attention, it’s incredibly barebones but stretched out to pad the runtime to 2 hours. If you cut out all of the nonsense that really doesn’t relate to the events of the film this would have been a tightly paced hour and a half thrill-ride that didn’t overstay it’s welcome. It really tries to go for some emotional scenes too, which ultimately fall flat on their face with wooden acting and stunted dialogue. In short if you’re ok with some really brutal but expertly choreographed fight scenes, and some graphic, bloody violence, then Extraction is exactly what you need to tide you over until John Wick 4, but it’s a shame that the camera work wasn’t as clean as John Wick’s and that the extremely basic story was given far more screen time than it deserved.