Extraction

This review may contain spoilers!

Beyond Thor, this has to be one of the best Chris Hemsworth roles I have ever seen. I would give Extraction an 8/10.

Extraction follows Tyler Rake, an elite Australian mercenary who accepts a suicidal extraction mission to rescue the son of a Mumbai drug lord from the clutches of his Dhaka rival. When the mission turns bad Tyler has half the city hunting him and an extraction window that is dwindling by the second. I was suitably impressed with gritty mercantile nature of this action-thriller, the first act grounds you in this world of the professional mercenary. These are all very human characters as the feature plays out but they react to combat and violence with impassivity and determination. The premise of these warring drug lords playing pawns off against one another is very well done and a lot of the significant characters are middle men fighting for these tycoons over the fate of the kid, Ovi. In particular, Saju's betrayal of the extraction team as a result of his boss not having enough money to pay them was one of the finer written moments of the feature. This film generates a conflict that is nothing but morally grey and no character emerges from this with their hands clean. It is a compelling fight to the end and I was hooked right up until the final shot. A very worthy mention for this film is the cinematography, the fluid nature in which the camera moves through combat with the intent of showing all aspects of what is occurring is phenomenal; not to mention the sheer number of carefully framed or unbroken tracking shots. The score for this feature is a melancholy one that suits the tone nicely, throughout the movie the music hits in like a despairing harbinger of death and it often enhances a number of key scenes.

Rudhraksh Jaiswal, who played Ovi Mahajan, was a great civilian counter to the mercenary lead of the film; Jaiswal had this ability of provoking these really emotional scenes in a genetle way that really took this feature to another level. Randeep Hooda, who played Saju, is a very desperate role torn between keeping his family safe and his loyalty to his drug lord boss; seeing Hooda tearfully bid farewell to his onscreen family one scene while viciously fighting tooth and claw through both forces he is up against is impressive. Pankaj Tripathi, who played Ovi Mahajan Sr., was an imposing drug lord figure who seethed menace throughout his scene; Tripathi presented a tyrant who was inclined to a warpath but impeded by the restrictions of his prison cell. Golshifteh Farahani, who played Nik Khan, was a calculating figure with a professional demeanour; Farahani was driven by the job and little more but as a commanding figure she worked her scenes beautifully. Priyanshu Painyuli, who played Amir Asif, is a very different criminal kingpin figure to that of Tripathi; Painyuli's crime lord is a cunning snake who wages his battle with intellect and strategy.

However, the best performance came from Chris Hemsworth, who played Tyler Rake. As a mercenary with extensive military experience Hemsworth's Rake is everything you could expect: a warrior in combat, impassive towards violence and other duties of the field and at all times driven towards his objective. Yet I liked seeing these walls slowly chip away naturally, moving towards his objective for the sake of the life he was protecting. When first we meet Rake, Hemsworth presents him as dishevelled, with little drive in his personal life and a significant substance abuse problem. Yet he was by all means a proficient operator and the best option for this job, even if it seemed the only reason he had taken it was to meet death. Yet as Hemsworth explored his role further, unveiling the cowardice Rake felt about fleeing from his son's death, his reasons for remaining in the op change. The journey to self-sacrifice we see Hemsworth take us through is powerful and one of the feats of his acting career.

The film did have some minor plot pitfalls, often around some of the more obvious subplots they introduced. The biggest glaring flaw was the betrayal from Gaspar, a former mercenary friend of Rake's who was called in to save his friend. The old friend coming in to save the day and turning to the side of the antagonists is a pretty played out trope and this film didn't go to any lengths to disguise that it was coming. The inevitable betrayal from Gaspar was one of the most boring moments from the film and lacked the creative spark it had been generating up until that point. Furthermore, the manner in which the film presented the opportunity for a sequel wasn't very necessary and took away from the impact of the greater story. The editing for Extraction also set a slower, rigid pace that didn't blend with the exemplary cinematography at all.

David Harbour, who played Gaspar, never really feels like he shows up to this movie; Harbour presents quite a domesticated ex-mercenary and not even his sudden betrayal of the main characters is enough to make his performance exciting.