Extraction Review: This is Not About Ransom, it is About Humiliation
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Extraction
Director: Sam Hargrave
8.5
Where to Watch Extraction?
Overall, Extraction was a pretty fun action movie. Its main selling point was the endless amount of action and gore.
Taking a break from his role as Thor, Chris Hemsworth plays Tyler Rake, a cold-blooded mercenary with a soft spot for children. When his extraction mission goes south, Tyler must give it everything for both him and his target to survive. Packed with high paced action, and plenty of blood and gore, you won’t be able to turn away from the screen.
Just like Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse, today I’m bringing you another two-part review. Today’s topic: Extraction, which features our good friend Thor. But this time, instead of saving the universe as a powerful god, Chris Hemsworth plays a mercenary on a rescue mission.
With Extraction 2 coming in a few days, I’m going over my thoughts on the first movie. And, after the second movie releases, I’ll be giving my thoughts on that too. So, enjoy this read, and stay tuned for the sequel.
Alright, first thing’s first, this movie is rated R. Which means there is plenty in this movie that’s not for children’s eyes. With that in mind, I’ll also be discussing some more sensitive topics, so you’ve been warned. While on the topics of warnings, this is also your spoiler warning, because I’ll be going into specific details. With all that out of the way, let’s get started.

Who are the characters in Extraction?
So, the first thing I want to talk about are the characters in the movie. Extraction is almost purely an action movie. As such, most of the characters featured in the film are pretty one-dimensional. But the main characters, both protagonist and antagonist were solid. Starting with our main man Chris Hemsworth, Tyler Rake is surprisingly a round character.
On the surface, Tyler is your stereotypical mercenary protagonist, strong and brave. He meets adversity head on. But through his interaction with Ovi, Tyler gets a good amount of development as his backstory gets explored. I really enjoyed learning that Tyler isn’t brave all the time. Although he’s risking his life for Ovi to extract him, and fights many enemies, Tyler had run away from one of the biggest moments in his life.
As his child was dying of illness, he fled to the battlefield voluntarily. After this gets revealed in the second half of the movie, it was interesting seeing this fact affecting him. For an action movie protagonist, I have to admit, it was refreshing seeing this kind of development in him.
Alongside Tyler, Ovi was a fun secondary character. As per most stories, he starts off being a brat and naïve, but after all he goes through, it was great, but also saddening seeing him lose this air of innocence. Seeing Ovi react to his situation was perfectly balanced against Tyler, which I appreciated.

Besides our two leads, the supporting cast was pretty strong too. I liked Saju’s inclusion in the story. When I first saw him confronting Tyler, I thought there was some kind of betrayal story line brewing. Although this wasn’t the case, it was interesting seeing how the two characters reacted to each other. Both Tyler and Saju want Ovi’s safety, but on the battlefield, chaos reigns supreme. Their fight scene was definitely one of the better ones in the movie.
The last character I want to talk about is Amir, the main antagonist of the movie. The drug lord on Bangladesh, I appreciate that he was given a good amount of screentime to show all sides of his character besides being true evil. I especially liked his interactions with Fahrad and the children. The way he instilled fear and respect when he was on screen was truly captivating.
So with characters out of the way, let’s talk about the contents of the movie. Being an action movie, you’re probably wondering how that was. Well, on the action front, you have nothing to worry about. Purely looking at the action, this movie was top notch. The fight choreography was fun to watch and had a brutal feel to each blow. I guess the one thing to watch out for in this movie is that they use a lot of shakey cam.
The first hour of the movie is almost all action, and I think a good 60-70% of that time has some kind of shaking in it. So, if you’re the type of person to have motion sickness, I’d be wary of most action scenes, or be prepared for all the shaking. Other than that, fights were on point.
There was also a good amount of blood in this movie. Personally, this aspect never bothered me much. Honestly, I liked how brutal and bloody this movie was. The contents of the movie isn’t the kind where you can shy from the gore. From purely an action point of view, it was pleasing to the eye and fun to watch.

The final thing I want to cover is the plot and the ending. From a plot perspective, it’s relatively straight forwards. Boy gets kidnapped, mercenary gets a job, saves the boy, gets attacked while with the boy, then boy gets saved. I appreciate the simple plot so that the rest of the aspects of the movie can be highlighted. With a simple plot, the action stands out, which works perfectly.
The one difference I found with this structure compared to other movies was the ambiguity of the ending. When the movie originally came out, I think it was purposefully left ambiguous since we don’t know the fate of Tyler after the battle on the bridge.
With the trailer of the second movie out, it seems that mystery is solved. The silhouette we see at the end is most definitely Tyler, which means he survived all his injuries. It feels a bit like plot armor, but I am excited to see what comes next.
Overall, Extraction was a pretty fun action movie. Its main selling point was the endless amount of action and gore. The fights were well choreographed, the characters were entertaining, and the plot was simple to understand. If action movies are your thing, give it a shot. It’ll be a fun 2 hours.