In Extraction, Chris Hemsworth does not have Mjolnir by his side. He still manages to ratchet up a triple digit bodycount to save a drug lord's son. How ungodly of him.

The plot is as simple as it gets- India's biggest drug lord's son gets kidnapped for ransom by Bangladesh's biggest drug lord, and the former enlists Hemsworth's group of mercenaries for the rescue. Of course, the obstacles start piling up, and Thor summons up all the thunder he can to save the innocent.

Neflix may have thought a movie set in Bangladesh offers novelty, but their treatment is so formulaic, that you replace Bangladesh with any other 3rd world country setting, the movie would virtually remain the same. The 10 year old child soldiers, machete waving teenagers, corrupt police forces and simply high gangsters could fit in anything set in Mexico, Africa or Burma. There is absolutely no attempt to develop the precious few characters in the movie, including the leads.

Seems Chris Hemsworth is saving his laughs for Marvel only. Here he plays Tyler Rake- a mercenary with a heart of gold and lot of bullets- you know the kind of characters Arnold used to play back in the 80s. Regular Netflix stalwarts Pankaj Tripathi, Neha Mahajan and David Harbour play side characters, but the one man that really makes every scene count is a buffed up Randeep Hooda. He stands toe to toe against Hemsworth in the action sequences, and gets a poignant send-off too. Rest of the cast are caricatures of the highest order.

Irrespective of the genericity of the plot, Extraction is probably one of Netflix's most well-choreographed action movie. and why not- given that director Sam Hargreaves has been the stunts director in a host of Marvel movies. Mind you, this is no Chad Stahelski, or Gareth Edwards stuff. Hargreaves trades off Chad's style, and Gareth's art for effective brute. It is a cocktail of everything you see in action movies- manic car chases, exploding helicopters, sniper fire, close quarter gunfights, and car crashes, and from a first time film-maker, really impressive at that.

Am sure he will only get better- and learn to nuance his characters a bit more, and make his movies a bit less predictable.

But the two things that make up my price of my time cost of viewing are the epic Thor vs Hellboy fight (can you do that, Marvel?) and making Hemsworth speak Bengali 😊

Indian don vs Bangladeshi don really? Whom did you think will win?

Extraction- playing on your phone.