Extraction (2020) proves the rule that stunt people know how to do stunts.

Director: Sam Hargrave (marvel stunts)

Writers: Joe Russo (marvel screenplay plus brother), Ande Parks (this novel)

Stars: Chris Hemsworth (marvel Thor), Bryon Lerum (this movie), Ryder Lerum (this movie)

Double tap and run run run to see this one.

Giving movies over to proven stunt men is almost always a good idea. Look at Smokey and the Bandit or John Wick to see the results in action. Pardon the pun. Extraction is one of these gems that is just a damn good time.

     Thor stars as Tyler Rake, a mercenary charged with extracting the kidnapped son of an Indian drug lord from a rival drug lord. Things go wrong, because if they didn't we would not have a movie, which sets off a prolonged chase that continues until many, many people are dead. Explosions, gunfights, car chases, and brutal fights pepper the proceedings.

     Let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: white guy killing lots of brown people. It's another one of these and with the political climate we have to talk about it. Been racking my brain about it, and I got no solution that works well. Sure, the bad guys are all drug dealers and corrupt officials and pretty much everyone supporting Rake (yeah, that's his name) is a person of color. Does that make it okay? I dunno. But it's a step in the right direction.

     So on to the movie. It's pretty much wall to wall action. Sure, there's moments of drama where we learn everyone's dark past and traumas, but for the most part if a gun is not involved an actual rake is. Is it putting a hat on a hat to have a man named Rake kill a man with a rake? I don't know and I don't care. Hargrave knows his action and shoots it in solid detail. Every punch, shot, and explosion is right out of the John Wick playbook and it's glorious. Hemsworth is a solid choice for a broken action man even without the comedy that the later Thor movies gave him.

     Not to say the movie is without its cliches. There's an orange filter over everything that I'm choosing to believe is a stylish choice of half of Michael Bay's run and not a weird way to show the "otherness" of Bangladesh. My references to the John Wick movies are not by accident, either, because most every kill ends with a double tap to the head. Not to say this movie rips that off, it's doing its own thing, but the comparison is there.

     A fun violent action movie, Extraction proves the rule that stunt people know how to do stunts. There's little story other than a killing spree from point A to point B, but sometimes all a movie needs is to show that competent people can do the work.