267.
Extraction
6.5/10
Some time off work is going to give me time to fly through some movies. My next stop is the letter E and we shall be watching Chris Hemsworth take on something completely different from some Marvel villains. I have seen his act as something else other than Thor but that was Men in Black and it was bloody terrible. What I am hoping is that this is action-packed and at least has a decent sort of story to it. I do worry at times because the other 'straight to Netflix' movies that I have picked up so far have left me wanting more. Not in the way that I expected more, but there were too many unanswered questions by the time the credits rolled. You can expect something half decent if it's produced by the Russo brothers surely? They've been in charge of the highest ever grossing movies so maybe we can get some enjoyment.
This movie will be following Hemsworth playing a black ops merc but we don't get to see him in his glory straight away. We seeing him kill a couple of people but he looks like he has been through hell and back until he sits next to an abandoned car. Then the scene cuts. We are following a young kid and his friends from school, hanging out and finally getting home where he has a little telling off by one of his father's associates. Now, I'm already wondering where the father is to do the job but the house is massive so he might be a dodgy fella himself. The kid, Ovi, sneaks out that night to meet his friends at a night club and whilst out back smoking, the police catch them with drugs, shoot his mate in the forehead and kidnap Ovi. The guy from home that gave him the bollocking has to break the news to his dad. Saju used to be Special Forces and is tasked with breaking the news to this Indian Drug lord. His own family is threatened if he doesn't get Ovi back as he was responsible for looking after his every move.
Saju knows that the Drug Lord no longer has the money for the ransom so he heads to the black market to hire Tyler Rake and his team. The first time we see Tyler, he's simply sunbathing before chucking himself off a cliff in front of his astonished companions before sitting below the water he lands in until he nearly drowns, bringing some blurred images of holding a child's hand. It doesn't take a rocket scientist in his first year of study to realise that this guy is remembering his dead child or at least a child he doesn't see any longer. After getting briefed, he meets the kidnappers, gets shown the hostage and then gets told to tell the father to pay. As he is lead out, we see the machine that is the killer they hired. Wiping out the gang, he takes the kids and tries to exit the city.
Instantly, the now lead drug lord and rival of this kid's old man finds out and demands that the police, which he owns, lock down the city. This is all whilst he is watching some kids get chucked off a roof. He likes one kid though, a little ballsy fella with a decent scar on his chops takes his eye and he wants him to have a gun, sticks him on the street and just as easy as the rest of the movie is to follow so far, this kid will have a role to play. As Tyler makes it to the escape boat, his colleagues on board are killed and the one keeping watch is also shot. As the office side of the team was waiting for the bank transaction to come through, which never happens, we know something is up. Saju the sneaky bastard has decided to doublecross the team. He got them to do the lift and the hard work and then he moved in for the kill so that he didn't have to pay. No Tyler has a problem, the kid knows Saju and wants to go with him but Tyler knows that if he lets this happen, he has pretty much killed himself.
A car chase, high rise chase and plenty of explosion and gunshots in between as the police move in leaves us with a battered Tyler hiding out trying to focus on his next move. Just as my cogs are turning, I think Tyler and Saju are going to have to come together by the end of this. He has only turned on the plan to save his own family but this is a hard task for all involved. They think the night will help them but that little shit with the scar has turned up with his gang of kids. This is quite funny to watch as Tyler slaps them down to the ground and doesn't pull his punches on the leader, once again giving them some time to escape as the police movie in with helicopters due to the ruckus. They find their way to the sewers and Tyler has to call in a favour from another ex merc. Hang about, the ruffian looks like David Harbour? Yep, it's Harbour and he is hiding the guys out in his flat. Problem is that he also works for the police general now and he is about to give up the duo. Tyler and he get into a fight and Tyler is only saved by Ovi picking up a gun and killing him. Harbour wasn't in the movie for long but it was good to see another familiar face. Tyler's team that is left in the office makes a new plan. They have to get the kid out view a bridge that crosses a border of the city and they can wait on the other side. For Tyler, there is only one person that he can bring on board to help out and that's Saju. Called it. Just before the call comes, we see a battered Saju calling home and promising his son that he will be home. That is never a good sign. The trio meets up and Tyler drops the kid off with Saju to use the plan. Tyler is off elsewhere to create a distraction so that the forces think the kid is still with him and bring hellfire down on his location. Saju and Ovi as disguised crossing the bridge but are finally stopped as a guard noticed the battered face of Saju and as he asks Ovi to take off his hat, he knows this is the kid they are looking for. All hell breaks loose on the bridge but from a rooftop, the drug lord is looking at the explosions on Tyler's location until he is made aware and sends two teams to the bridge. Saju gets in touch with Tyler to let him know they are sussed and now it is a race to get this kid across. The leader of the forces takes a vantage point with a sniper and begins picking off the team waiting at the other side of the bridge whilst a helicopter makes it to the location and starts spraying at Saju as the kid hides on a bus. This is beginning to get to the opening scene as Tyler fights his way on to the bridge. Saju is taken down by a bullet to the skull as the sniper takes aim and now it is up to Tyler to get this kid moving and give him cover. Ovi runs for his life as Tyler takes and receives and the Sniper takes aim again, downing him. The lead female on our team takes her own sniper, picks him out and ends the offence. Tyler gets back to his feet but pretty much knows he is done. He lets the kid get to safety and turns around with every hope of covering the escape of his team and Ovi. He picks off the last of the police and turns to the female and Ovi to give a little smirk but is cut short as that little tosser with the scar has shown up again. Fire is returned from the safe end of the bridge and he scampers off like a little rat but the job is done. This is the clearest flashback of Tyler holding hands with the little boy that we see. Ovi realises what has happened and tries to make it to his new friend but is stopped as Tyler, seeing Ovi is safe, falls backward into the river.
The movie cuts to 8 months later and the team had escaped to Mumbai so I'm not sure if that's where Ovi is now but we see him in a school, pretty quiet and heading to the diving board. He jumps and settles on the floor of the pool, just as Tyler did, collecting his thoughts and heading back for air. As he turns to the to look around the camera focuses on Ovi but the background is a blur and a guy is standing there looking on, who is very much in the shape of Tyler Rake. Netflix you bastards, you don't have like leaving me with a question I'll never get the answer to.
I put up a status on Facebook to say that I was about to begin watching this and the response was, 'don't get your hopes up' and so on. This didn't fill me with confidence but as in the past this lowers my expectations and I can go ahead and enjoy a movie for what it is, an escape from the real world. The storyline was incredibly simple and predictive although I still would like to know if Tyler survived somehow. I'm pretty happy with myself for working out that Saju was going to come good as his intentions were always to protect his own family from a threat so you could understand why he took the actions that he did. The story for Tyler started in water as well as ending in water and as he was losing his life, the picture of his son would get clearer, showing him and his son running through water.
The cast was very well done also. It was nice to see Hemsworth in a more serious acting role. The first Thor movie was a little serious, a tiny bit of humour, the second the same but the third and the later Avengers movies came with a lot more humour, from him. The Men in Black installment isn't worth speaking about but they tried to draw out the same humour between two cast members from the third Thor installment. This time we got action and plenty of it. I had heard a rumour that there was a lot of action like a John Wick movie and I dislike those series. Thankfully this movie wasn't as full of non-sensical violence and I enjoyed it a lot more. The rest of the cast, although I may never see them in something else after this, helped to install the decently run movie.
Thankfully, as already mentioned, I went into this with thinking it would be nothing more than a popcorn movie and from the three Netflix exclusive movies so far, they all had the same feeling. I would have been disappointed if I rocked up to a cinema for a ticket I had paid for but watching from the comfort of my own home to kill a couple of hours was enjoyable thankfully. I'm still here wondering if it was Tyler standing at the side of the pool at the end of the movie. In Netflix tradition, we will never know I suppose.
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