Extraction 2(Netflix)
Rating: ** ½
Extraction is now a series of big-action films where Chris Hemsworth, a bonafide superstar,gets to rescue one or the other distressed party from very dangerous criminals who won’t stop at anything.Neither does Hamsworth. In the first Extraction film it was the very talented teenage actor Rudraksha Jaiswal who needed rescuing.
And boy, was Hemsworth up to the job.
In Extraction 2 it is Tinatin Dalakishvili as Ketevan a smothered bullied Georgian wife and mother who is held captive by two Georgian brothers, Tornike Gogrichiani as Zurab and Tornike Bziava as Davit who look like terror twins from hell. One of them is Ketevan’s husband who wants her dead. Before he gets his wish Hemsworth muscles into a prison where Ketevan and her two children are held captive.
Without further ado, let me state that the prison-break sequence is the most heart-in-the-mouth action piece I’ve seen lately, far more transfixing that anything we’ve seen in other recent actioners including the recent Kandahar which was a dug-a-mountain-to-find-mouse kind of anti-climactic guns-and-gore anti-terrorism bore.
Extraction is much more than just a flamboyant distraction. It is designed as a nonstop actioner and it doesn’t pause for breath. Director Sam Hargrave focuses relentlessly on the action, each stunt more audacious than the previous one.
Joining Hemsworth in his rescue hijinks is the beautiful Iranian-French actress Golshifteh Farahani who doesn’t spare herself a single moment of the striking stunts.She is in this for fun. And she is not apologetic.
My only regret is that we have to watch this impressively staged full-blown action film at home. This experience belongs in the movie theatre.
For an action film Extraction 2 has some surprisingly decent performances . Hemsworth and Farahani play against one another as two unstoppable mercernaries who just don’t pause long enough from the action to solve their problems. They are both charming and committed. Idris Elba shows up in a pertinent cameo in this cleverly written stunt spree where the carnage is controlled except in sequence where a rake is used to impale a character’s neck.Spear them,please.
Only one principal character dies at the end of Excavation 2.But there is scarcely room for mourning. We are already looking at the third part of Excavation .What will it be this time? Hemsworth rescuing the writer of a subverted Hindu epic from angry mobs?
