Z-View: “Extraction”

Extraction (2020)

Director: Sam Hargrave

Screenplay: Joe Russo (based on the graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks, Joe Russo, Anthony Russo, Fernando Leon Gonzalez, Eric Skillman)

Stars:  Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani, Rudhraksh Jaiswal and David Harbour.

The Pitch: “Let’s turn the Ciudad graphic novel into a movie!”

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The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Tyler Rake (Hemsworth) is part of a mercenary team hired to rescue a drug lord’s kidnapped son.  To complete the extraction the team must journey into Dhaka, a city ruled by the rival drug lord who kidnapped his rival’s son.  All is going well until the team is betrayed and Rake finds himself alone with the boy trying to get to the extraction site. To get there he will have to fight the corrupt cops, the drug lord’s soldiers and street gangs looking to earn the reward offered up by drug lord.

The premise of Extraction is a classic action picture trope. Yet, Extraction puts twists on aspects of the movie that could have easily been cliches.  Rake has a death-wish but the cause of his troubles provides reason to succeed in this mission at any cost.  The person who betrayed the mission does it for an unusual reason.  The location of the movie is one seldom (never?) seen and provides fresh opportunities for action scenes and those action scenes are equal to those that you’d find in John Wick movies.

Extraction left me impressed, thinking about the characters, story and ending well after the final credits.  I can’t wait to watch it again!

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