Extraction Movie Review: Extraction is a two-man job, equal parts Chris Hemsworth and Randeep Hooda

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HIGHLIGHTS

Sam Hargrave’s Extraction, a Netflix Original, will start streaming on April 24, 2020.
Extraction stars Indian actors Pankaj Tripathi, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, and Priyanshu Painyuli, apart from Randeep Hooda.
Extraction has been scripted and produced by Joe Russo of Avengers fame.

“Tumi toh pola paan,” a menacing Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli) says, patting the cheek of a boy (Suraj Rikame as Farhad), all of 16. This was right after he ordered the same boy to chop off two of his fingers as retribution for his missing consignment. A group of terrified kids and a couple of Amir’s stooges watch. Welcome to Dhaka.

Sam Hargrave’s Extraction (based on the graphic novel Ciudad by Ande Parks), a Netflix original, stands – runs and fights – on three legs: Chris Hemsworth as Tyler Rake, Randeep Hooda as Saju and Priyanshu as Aamir. There’s insane amount of action, bullets fired, cars and helicopters are blown up and bodies pile up like dead flies. And like a master puppeteer, Sam maintains a tight hold on everything.

The trailer informs you of a few things. Tyler is a black-market mercenary hired to extract a Mumbai druglord’s (Pankaj Tripathi as Ovi Mahajan senior) kidnapped son (Rudhraksh Jaiswal as Ovi Mahajan) from the holds of Amir. Saju is ambiguous, you are unsure which side of the battle he’s on. About 30 minutes into the film, you realize the trailer was exactly what it’s supposed to be – a trailer. The film is quite different.

Watch the trailer of Extraction here:

Yes, there’s action. But Tyler is no Thor. He is strong but he falls and bleeds, loses his breath, needs Ovi’s help to bandage his wounds. He fights like a human, not god, and while he is resilient, you see flashes of fear and vulnerability on his face. Saju is no different. He stares at his broken, now-blackened nose in the mirror, shifts it back into position in one clean sweep, and shrieks in unbearable pain. Both our mighty warriors were recuperating in their respective hideouts, after the 11-minute hand-to-hand combat scene that’s now turned out to be Extraction’s USP.

The combat scene is a dance duet. It is technically sound and shows the two-week prep that went into it. The camera movement is jerky, enabling the audience to follow both Tyler and Saju’s movement rather than give them a gallery view, making it that much more impactful.

Unlike the Avengers – and the only reason we’re even dropping this name is that Sam is credited as the action director on most while Extraction is scripted by Avengers: Endgame director, Joe Russo – Extraction doesn’t show broad heroes and broader villains complementing them. Chris Hemsworth’s bigness is juxtaposed with Priyanshu Painyuli’s petiteness. Yet, there’s no speck of doubt in your mind that this princely-looking guy with impeccable fashion sense – he pulls off a light yellow suit and an embroidered sherwani with equal panache – is the lord of Dhaka. And when he says, “Dhaka bondho kore dao (shut down Dhaka),” you believe him. May we also add that there’s a certain something about a Bangla-spouting villain. Though Priyanshu doesn’t always get the Bangal twang of Bangla right, brownie points for efforts.

It is interesting to note here that Amir and Tyler never come face to face, despite being at war with each other. Priyanshu Painyuli as Amir Asif in a still from Extraction.

There’s very little of Golshifteh Farahani as Nik Khan, Tyler’s contractor who finds him such odd jobs, but she is effective. David Harbour as Gasper, ex-mercenary, and Tyler’s only friend in Dhaka who helps him with food and shelter one night serves an important purpose – reminding us that you can do this only till you’re young. Old age makes your back crack. But Pankaj Tripathi has been given just one scene. He’s in jail but more importantly, he’s lost his evil hold. Now, he’s a desperate man who wants his son home, not because he loves him but because of izzat ka sawaal hai.

A common thread that binds each character together in Extraction is a delicate father-son relationship – Tyler, and his son who died at four of lymphosarcoma; Saju and his son who he is trying to protect lest he becomes a pawn in a mafia war, Ovi Mahajan senior and junior who are practically alien to each other, and even Amir who sees a sort of successor in Farhad.

Credit to both Sam and Joe here for such nuanced characterization.Chris Hemsworth and Rudhraksh Jaiswal in a scene in Extraction.

Extraction is 116 minutes of pure action, interspersed with Gladiator-Esque flashbacks of blurry faces of loved ones (in Tyler’s case). When one’s physical and psychological strength is being tested to such extremes in a fight, such soft overlapping scenes only enhance the brutality and thereby the impact on the audience’s mind. So it’s natural that Sam went for this kind of a screenplay style. In some parts, however, this carefully chosen trope slows down the narrative a bit, while in others it makes the likes of Tyler and Saju look whinier than humans.

One has to add here that, it is perhaps for the first time that we’ve come across an American film that does justice to Indian talent by giving them fleshed-out roles and not reduce them to stereotypes. Priyanshu Painyuli is proper evil, Randeep Hooda is a true fighter, and Rudhraksh Jaiswal, though sometimes tilting towards the formulaic hapless Indian boy we’ve seen far too often in Slumdog Millionaire and Life Of Pi, makes your heart bleed.

The music in Extraction is interesting. The background score (by Alex Belcher and Henry Jackman) heightens the tension, exactly how it ought to, and the intermittent use of Bangladeshi rap – Cypher Bangla 2K16 is now on our playlist – gives you the illusion of calm, only to later hit you with a wham! There’s a third element – 90s Bollywood music – blaring from windows and dingy rooms as Tyler with Ovi in tow parkours through the chawls of Dhaka.

Sam’s Extraction is meant for theatre-viewing in Dolby digital. We’d recommend you plug in your headphones for this one.