Extraction staring Chris Hemsworth takes action more serious than Thor

In an era where 'action movie' means super heroes and high budget science fiction, Extraction sets itself apart by being a pure action thriller without forced comical one-liners. It leaves behind silly ironic humor, a trait that is effective but has become over saturated with the Marvel cinematic universe at the forefront of action films. Extraction stands on its own but there is more than one MCU comparative feature: it stars Chris Hemsworth most known for his role in Thor one of the centers of joking light-hearted fun of MCU films.

Extraction premiered April 24th on Netflix as one of their many original offerings that go straight to their streaming service. Sam Hargrave directed the film that is based on Ande Parks' comic book called Ciudad. Joe Russo wrote the screenplay. Its association with the MCU doesn't end with the first paragraph, Sam Hargrave worked as stunt coordinator for the Russo brothers directed films Captain America: Civil War and Avengers Endgame.

The film also highlights south and west asian actors and actresses popular in the non-American scene and among fans of world cinema. Randeep Hooda is a man of many faces and the way he can seemingly completely change his look from film to film makes me want to dive deeper into his career. Golshifteh Farahani is a Persian actress that was criminally under used in the film but showed up on screen enough to make viewers realize her worth. Aside from Ovi played by Rudhraksh Jaiswal, we are only allowed a taste of the world cinema scene.

Films like Extraction, Parasite and Portrait of a Lady on fire have opened my eyes to directors, actors and actresses that I should seek out and not wait for some distribution company to decide US audiences should watch them. Extraction solidified that opinion because in the end it's a fun, simple, mindless action film as opposed to Parasite and Portrait of a Lady on Fire which were critically acclaimed.

Randeep and Golshifteh I'm looking out for you guys now.

A film like Extraction is needed in the movie market today and is a great movie to turn on while you're chasing your cabin fever children around the house. It never requires you to pay to close attention to the plot and even though there are some moments where subtitles are needed to translate various languages like Bengali, I'll be honest I didn't rewind some of it and I had no problem figuring out Amir Asif is "the bad guy".

The word 'problematic' has been thrown around with Extraction. And I see the argument, another white guy coming in as the big action hero to save the brown people, but I also see the marketing angle. It's Chris Hemsworth and some great actors and actresses are getting put right in front American Netflix audiences. If Will Smith played Hemsworth's part could be marginally better but then it's an American coming to save the brown people.

Randeep Hooda could have played this lead with not problem but then most of the world wouldn't have seen Extraction. My hope is that much like Christoph Waltz did in Inglorious Basterds Randeep Hooda and Goshifteh Farahani are able to parlay these roles into higher paying roles in big budget American films (if that's what they want).

Extraction is a simple mindless fun action film that doesn't edge into campy buddy comedy like Expendables and the Fast and the Furious. If you have Netflix and you yearn for the days of cool ass action flicks that aren't "space cadet" as my father calls anything sci-fi and even anything fantasy, then Extraction is a no brainer.