Extraction 2 (2023) Review!!

Synopsis – After barely surviving his grievous wounds from his mission in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tyler Rake is back, and his team is ready to take on their next mission.

My Take – Released in 2020, Extraction was one the bigger Netflix original hits over the past few years and provided the streaming giant with a new action franchise led by Chris Hemsworth as the black market mercenary for hire, Tyler Rake. Harkening back to a time when action flicks were made just to entertain, the Sam Hargrave directorial managed to exceed expectations by providing a satisfying, non-stop heart-pounding thrill-ride.

While the possibility of a sequel was in the air for some time, considering how the Joe Russo written film ended, much of the original team has managed to return for another round with a promise to go harder, higher and bloodier than ever. Though personally, I enjoyed the original film a bit more, the sequel delivers precisely what it promised.

A genuinely gripping, adrenaline-charged 122 minute long action-packed adventure with even more impressive action set pieces. For example, the original film delivered a 12-minute long action sequence shot to look like an uninterrupted take, the sequel raises the bar by delivering a 21-minute jolt.

Yes, the sequel’s story is generic and more disappointing than the original, however, it’s tough not to praise how the film brilliantly blends the impressive stunt work and choreography together.

Beginning right from where the last film ended, the story once again follows Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), who after barely surviving his previous mission, retires from mercenary work to a quiet cabin in Austria. Only to head back when he is visited by a mysterious man (Idris Elba), a messenger from his ex-wife, Mia (Olga Kurylenko), requesting his services for a new extraction mission.

The target being Ketevan (Tinatin Dalakishvili), his former sister-in-law, and her two children Sandro (Andro Japaridze) and Nina, who are currently residing at Tkachiri prison in Georgia, where her powerful incarcerated drug-lord husband Davit Radiani (Tornike Bziava) has been keeping them close at hand.

Joined by his close friends and fellow mercenaries, Nik Kahn (Golshifteh Farahani) and Yaz Kahn (Adam Bessa), Tyler manages to get inside the prison, however, when an important element during the mission goes wrong, the group finds themselves chased by Davit’s even more menacing brother, Zurab (Tornike Gogrichiani) and his large group of followers.

From here on, the narrative explodes into a wild action outing, moving from one insane set piece to the next, pausing only to take a breath to deliver story beats. From a violent prison break to a shootout on a moving train and nail-biting fight on a skyscraper’s glass ceiling, there’s no shortage of blockbuster spectacle to be found here. Returning director Hargrave makes superb use of camera movement to bring audiences into the frantic chaos of each scene.

Here, director Hargrave once again refuses to flinch at the grisly side of combat, resulting in kills that would make even the hardest action fan wince. Rake slices hands, sets baddies ablaze, and caves in faces, using whatever he can find from guns, knives, shields, to weight-training equipment. The hand-to-hand combat in this flick is brutally entertaining.

Hargrave, a stuntman turned director, knows where to put his camera for maximum impact, and showcases sounds of crunching bones and splattering blood. You feel every punch land. Even the car-chase sequences are nothing short of spectacular.

In one extended sequence, the camera swoops, zooms, and spins its way through a 21-minute one-shot to blistering effect. The choreography and stunt work are also exceptionally well done. Less successful, however, is the screenplay, with the story acting more as an excuse to place the gigantic action scenes, rather than drive the flick forward.

In its weakest moments, the film spends too much time dwelling on the hero’s existential crisis. The first 20 minutes of the film follow mercenary Rake as he recovers from his aforementioned injuries and ponders the meaning of life, finding no worthwhile answer. Though Rake is the only one who gets his character arc explored, all the more dramatic moments that deal with a sensitive aspect of his past seem more like a structural narrative obligation than something spontaneously built to make you care.

Nevertheless, Chris Hemsworth’s magnetic charisma makes him the ideal action hero star. However, the real stars of the film are the sibling team played by the gorgeous GolshiftehFarahani and the slick Adam Bessa. The chemistry between Farahani and Bessa with Hemsworth really shines through, and has us truly invested in their characters.

In other roles, Tinatin Dalakishvili, Tornike Gogrichiani, Daniel Bernhardt, Andro Japaridze, Tornike Bziava and Olga Kurylenko are good. Idris Elba surprises in a cameo that will get bigger in the next installment. On the whole, ‘Extraction 2’ is an action-packed, high-octane follow-up that delivers precisely what it promises.