By Paul Byrnes
Extraction 2 ★★½
(MA15+) 124 minutes
Chris Hemsworth is having another Extraction. It was inevitable when his first Extraction got 99 million views on Netflix in one month in 2020. Being locked up with COVID-19 may have helped, but the first movie had some class.
Tinatin Dalakishvili (left) as Ketevan and Chris Hemsworth as gun-for-hire-Tyler Rake in Extraction 2.
It was unashamed pedal-to-the-floor action with no respite and no quarter. Hemsworth played an Australian mercenary with a death wish, a former SAS guy whose marriage ended when he could not face the fact his six-year-old son was dying (he choofed off to Afghanistan instead). Now he kills people because he feels guilty.
Tyler Rake (yes, that is his name) is a member of an elite team who will go anywhere and kill anyone for money – but usually bad guys. Golshifteh Farahani, cast against type, is Nik, his controller, friend and confidant – a beautiful badass with a heart of gold. In the first film they went to Bangladesh to rescue a boy kidnapped by a drug lord. That was bound to go down well in India, given the enmity between those two countries.
The body count was massive – unbelievably high. Not since Arnie laid waste to America’s enemies in the 1980s have so many hench-persons died in so many ways. But the real eye-opener was the way director Sam Hargrave brought flair to an otherwise ordinary script by Joe Russo, who was adapting a graphic novel he and his brother Anthony made with Ande Parks in 2014.
The action scenes were seamless and endless – almost without perceptible edit points, courtesy of some extraordinarily good camera work and post-production. The effect was dazzling – more Bond than Bond, more Bourne than Bourne – and none of that namby-pamby moralism about how many people were converted to pink mist. This was a first-person shooter game on a gigantic scale, with no qualms. Faster Tyler, kill, kill!
The second Extraction is more grandiose, full of pace and action, and dull as a box of rocks. It follows all the bad rules of sequels – bigger, louder, dumber. Rake and Nik take on some Georgian drug lords – one of whom is married to Rake’s former sister-in-law (Tinatin Dalakishvili). Rake breaks her, her small daughter and teenage son (Andro Japaridze) out of a hellhole prison, pursued by every gun that her nasty husband (Tornike Gogrichiani) can muster. And that’s a lot: his resources in humans and weapons are endless.
Only a certain section of the audience wants no characterisation in a movie. Adrenaline rush isn’t really enough once you are old enough to shave. And Hemsworth did a lot with the role first time round. He’s not required to do much this time. There’s no time: he has places to go and people to kill.
Extraction 2 is streaming on Netflix from June 16.
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