Extraction

The high-octane thriller Extraction seems to be conceived primarily as a non-Thor action vehicle for Chris Hemsworth, but it’s really more of a tribute to the value of top-notch stunt work.

Perhaps that’s fitting, given that rookie director Sam Hargrave is a longtime stunt performer and choreographer, and most recently stunt coordinator on Avengers: Endgame.

However, the generic screenplay by another of their collaborators, regular Avengers filmmaker Joe Russo, sinks this slick exercise by lacking imagination between the violent outbursts, or providing substance alongside the spectacle.

Hemsworth plays a cash-strapped Australian vigilante named Tyler Rake, who is hired as a black-market mercenary by a representative (Golshifteh Farahani) of an imprisoned Indian drug lord to rescue his kidnapped preteen son (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) in Dhaka — which geography buffs will know is the capital of Bangladesh.

At any rate, the mission is naturally fraught with peril. After he locates the boy, Tyler learns he’s actually wanted by multiple criminal enterprises, most notably a Bangladeshi drug trafficker (Priyanshu Painyuli) who expects the ransom and has plenty of resources at his disposal. Tyler is forced to team up with a former adversary (Randeep Hooda) to finish the job.

Outside of its technical flourishes, the film lacks narrative ambition by oversimplifying its sociopolitical landscape and offering standard-issue heroes and villains, along with a hint of white-savior complex. The screenplay transfers the setting from Ande Parks’ graphic novel Ciudad — which Russo helped to create — emphasizing chases, confrontations, and death-defying escapes over meaningful character development.

That seems to play to Hargrave’s strengths, as he crafts some thrilling set pieces amid the hustle and bustle of contemporary Bangladesh, such as an impressive extended white-knuckle getaway through crowded urban streets and corridors, accomplished in a single take.

Trading his hammer for fists and bullets, Hemsworth brings charisma and swagger to a character with a familiar mix of quirks, personal issues, and survival instincts. As his precocious young sidekick, Jaiswal conveys the requisite wide-eyed resilience.

While funneling toward an inevitable high-stakes final showdown, Extraction is pure adrenaline-fueled escapism, best enjoyed with your brain set to autopilot. However, its video-game mentality becomes repetitive, pounding more than just the bad guys into submission.

Rated R, 116 minutes.