Continuing Netflix’s recent hot streak of below-average action thrillers, Extraction is Chris Hemsworth’s attempt to ditch the superhero tights and reinvent himself as the next Tom Cruise/Keanu Reeves by throwing himself across tables and shooting what seems like the entire population of Bangladesh.

Except this isn’t really such a huge leap for Hemsworth at all, considering that this is a Russo Brothers-produced project (who helmed the Avengers series) and is directed by Sam Hargrave, Hemsworth’s stunt double on the Marvel films. So it’s business as usual really, with plenty of weak character development and eye-rollingly manipulative melodrama padding out a handful of tidily-executed action setpieces. 

Most of the attention will be on the one-shot sequence halfway through the film that lasts a good ten minutes and follows Hemsworth and Rudhraksh Jaiswal (who plays Ovi, the kidnapped teen who Hemsworth is protecting) as they escape a whole army of poorly coordinated soldiers. It is an admittedly impressive scene, but when it’s over you realise you’re stuck with this tedious collection of macho-man clichés for a whole hour more. 

And what a tedious hour it is. Hemsworth plays a mercenary named Tyler Rake, a suitably bland name for an impossibly one-dimensional character. His character seems to solely revolve around mindless shooting, and Rake sure does do a lot of killing here as he tears through countless Bangladeshi neighbourhoods. Elsewhere, a po-faced score filled with brooding cellos and echoey piano stabs does little to lift Hargrave’s debut film above the sea of generic action schlock.

It says a lot that the most interesting thing about Extraction is its end credits, which clock in at a staggering 14 minutes. Coincidentally, it’s also about 14 minutes into the film that you’ll start to lose interest.

RATING: 2/5

INFORMATION

CAST: Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Pankaj Tripathi, David Harbour

DIRECTOR: Sam Hargrave

WRITER: Joe Russo

SYNOPSIS: Tyler Rake takes on an assignment to rescue a kidnapped teenager from Bangladesh’s most notorious crime lord.