Akhiyon se goli maare, Ek ladki ko dekha toh aisa laga, Didi tera devar deewana and Mehndi lagake rakhna are the songs playing in the background when Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is running around the densly populated Dhaka in order to rescue a 14-year-old Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) in Netflix’s new original movie Extraction, giving a feeling that Indian migrants are residing in Bangladesh and not the other way round.
Minutes into the film, Tyler casually jumps from a height of 300-feet into a pond and it is clearly established that our hero is a Khatron ka Khiladi. Tyler has a troubled past that involves a wife and child (which we can guess from miles away). While Hemsworth’s character is a mercenary, we know – having watched enough films – that a noble side of him will come to the fore.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, a jailed drug lord’s son is kidnapped by another drug lord based in Dhaka. FYI: this is India’s biggest drug lord taking on the biggest drug lord in Bangladesh and in the two-hour mindless, script-less action blow-up, we aren’t given a backstory to this rivalry.
Tyler is hired to rescue the teenager and without wasting any time, he is in the room where Ovi is held hostage. Performing all the unimaginable stunts and butchering scores of people, the one-man army (which is a more refined version of Sunny Deol in Gadar), moves the child away from the den. However, little did he know that things are going to get a little complicated and a bit more gruesome.
Saju (Randeep Hooda), an ex-military, who works for Ovi’s father (Pankaj Tripathi), is also on the same rescue mission. The catch is if he doesn’t bring back Ovi safe, the drug lord will kill his wife and child. Cliché.
Meanwhile, in Dhaka, drug lord Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli), has the country’s Army (or at least on badly-dressed colonel :P) in his pocket. It made me think that it could easily pass off as the other Indian neighbour and obviously a change of profession.
First-time director Sam Hargrave, who was the stunt coordinator in Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, has done amazingly well in the wham-bam action sequences. However, the film completely falls flat due to its wafer-thin script, and could easily pass off another installment in Tiger Shroff’s Baaghi franchise.
This overtly predictable film is also a reminder that Netflix just hasn’t figured out how to provide good-quality content even after assembling an impeccable star cast and top names in the movie business (P.S. If the greatest living director can’t make a passable Netflix movie, it’s unlikely that others can :P)
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Priyanshu Painyuli, Golshifteh Farhani, Pankaj Tripathi, Suraj Rikame
Director: Sam Hargrave
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Verdict: 2 stars