EXTRACTION : Monday 27th April 2020.

In these very trying and testing times for us all that has seen many cinema's, Odeon's, and movie theatres around the world close their doors for the foreseeable future because of the escalating threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus taking an ever increasing hold on the world at large, many film and television productions halted in their tracks indefinitely, and new film releases pushed back to some future date when some sense of movie going normalcy is expected to resume, I have, needless to say, had to adapt to this new world order. And so with my usual Reviews of the latest cinematic releases being curtailed, instead I will post my Review of the latest release movies showing on Netflix until such time as the regular outing to my local multiplex or independent theatre can be reinstated.

In the last few weeks then, a number of new feature films have landed at Netflix - of which I review as below 'Extraction' which went live on the streaming service on 24th April and which I saw from the comfort of my own home on Monday 27th April.

'EXTRACTION' is Directed, in his first feature film, by Stuntman, Actor, Editor, and Writer Sam Hargrave whose impressive line up of movie stunt work takes in the likes of 'Avengers : Endgame', 'Deadpool 2', 'Avengers : Infinity War', 'Thor : Ragnarok', 'Suicide Squad', 'Captain America : Civil War', and three of the 'Hunger Games' films amongst many others. This film is based on the comic 'Ciudad' by Ande Parks and the story was developed by him and Joe and Anthony Russo, written for the screen by Joe Russo, and Co-Produced by the Russo brothers and Chris Hemsworth. Needless to say Hargarve, Hemsworth and the Russo's have much history together having worked with each other on the final two 'Avengers' offerings. The film was made for US$65M and has garnered largely mixed or average Reviews so far, although as the lead, Chris Hemsworth has been praised for his performance.

The film opens up with young boy Ovi Mahajan Jnr. (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) being kidnapped and held for a hefty ransom by Bangladesh's biggest drug lord Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli). Next we see Saju (Randeep Hooda), meeting the young lads father Ovi Mahajan Snr. (Pankaj Tripathi) in prison to tell him that his son has been kidnapped by his arch rival and nemesis Asif. Ovi Snr. is behind bars because he is India's biggest drug lord and kingpin. Saju is a former Para (Special Forces) operative and the right hand man of Ovi Snr. who was under explicit instructions to never let Ovi Jnr. out of his sight and to keep him closely guarded at all times. Major fail here on Saju's part, who is told in no uncertain terms to locate Ovi Jnr. and bring him home safely by any means necessary or suffer the consequences which Ovi Snr. is still able to wield even from inside prison.

We then cut to three likely lads in the Australian Kimberly Ranges, one of whom is a dozing in the shade thirty metres above a natural rock pool, with a beer in his hand - Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth). He comes around having been taunted by his two mates, gets up and nonchalantly walks straight up to the edge and launches himself into the clear waters thirty meters below. He then sits on the bottom on the lake for several minutes, as a memory of footprints on a sandy beach flash in his mind. Returning to his isolated cabin, there is a helicopter in the paddock, and inside the house is his handler and fellow mercenary Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani). It turns out that Tyler Rake is a former Special Air Services Regiment soldier and now a black market mercenary for hire. Khan tells Tyler that his services are required in India to extract a young kidnapped kid and there's a hefty pay day in it for him, to meet up at a pre-determined point in the morning, but only if he's sober.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh Tyler meets with the 'extraction' team, receives his briefing and heads to the city centre awaiting his next move. He takes a call on his mobile phone and walks across the street and is hastily bundled into the back of a van and taken to a house bound and blindfolded. With a room full of goons, Tyler is held at gunpoint and asked to hand over the ransom money. Tyler responds coolly with wanting proof of life first, and after seeing the bound and hooded boy in a neighbouring room is carted off to arrange for the ransom money to be transferred. Needless to say before Tyler has even exited the building three of his captors are dead, and he's back knocking on the door all guns blazing to take out the rest of the goons and rescue the boy. With the young lad in tow, they make a get away in a car and then traipse a couple of kilometres through a forest on foot to make a rendezvous with a boat that will get them outta Dodge.

What they didn't count on was Saju, with his own agenda to rescue young Ovi from Tyler, who is hot on their tail and determined to make life as uncomfortable for Tyler as possible, for fear of Ovi Snr. taking retribution on his own family if he is unsuccessful and because he cannot pay the ransom because all of his money and assets have been frozen. Meanwhile, Asif has ordered a complete lockdown on Dhaka, through the Colonel of the Bangladesh Elite Force (Shataf Figar) who Asif has in his pocket. All the while Tyler is in radio contact with Khan, who advises that the plan has gone south rapidly as more of Asif's henchmen and Elite Force are converging on the boat, and to get the hell outta there.

After various other close run ins with the Police, Elite Force, Saju and Asif's goon squad involving lots of creative gun play, close quarter hand to hand combat, car chases, explosions and an ever rising body count the pair find safe haven for a couple of hours at night in the run down office of some manufacturing plant. However, their R&R is interrupted when they attempt to exit by Farhad (Suraj Rikame) a teenage boy who wishes to prove himself to Asif by killing Tyler, and his merry band of gun totting youngsters. Tyler beats off the boys but spares them their lives. Taking temporary refuge in a rat infested sewer, Tyler contacts Khan and tells her to contact Gaspar, a former team mate, now living in Dhaka, who owes his life to Tyler.

Sometime later and Gaspar (David Harbour) picks the pair up and drives them to his home, where Tyler and Ovi shower, freshen up, Tyler tends to his wounds, Ovi sleeps and the two friends share a whisky and talk about old times, before Gaspar leaves. Tyler takes food upstairs to Ovi, and the pair talk about Tyler's ex-wife whom he hasn't seen in years and his six-year-old son who died of lymphoma. When Gaspar returns, he tries to convince Tyler to give up Ovi for the US$10M bounty on his head which would set them both up for life and reveals to him that Asif is actually his friend whom he cannot cross. He and Tyler get into a fist fight and Ovi finds the two mid-fight. Gaspar starts to explain and approaches Ovi who is holding a pistol. Ovi ends up shooting Gaspar twice in the chest sending him reeling backwards slumping down in an easy chair where he draws his last breaths before dying. Ovi is shaken and collapses on the stairs crying and is comforted by Tyler.

Despite Tyler beating the crap out of Saju in an earlier fist and knife fight and then mowing him down with a truck, he calls Saju and asks for his help, forcing them to team up against the Police and Elite Force in order to escape Dhaka. Tyler creates a diversion away from Saju and Ovi using a rocket launcher, and rapid machine gun fire, as the two attempt to make their way through a bridge checkpoint. The pair are separated when their identities are revealed - with Saju pinning down the advancing Police with gunfire and Ovi taking refuge in an abandoned bus. Tyler makes his way back towards the bridge along with Khan's extraction team of mercenaries in an advancing helicopter as Asif watches from afar.

During the ensuing firefight, Saju is sniped and killed by Asif's Colonel who is then in turn sniped and killed by Khan. Rake continues to cover the extraction now with more Police and Elite Force advancing and is severely wounded in the shootout. He instructs Ovi to run towards the now landed and waiting helicopter and continues firing until the last of the Police and the Elite Force are dispensed with, with the intent to follow. Ovi watches alongside Khan as Tyler makes his way towards the helicopter, only to be shot in the side of the neck by Farhad. Tyler drags himself to the side of the bridge and falls over the barrier backwards into the river below, but not before seeing a clear vision of his son playing by the waters edge on a pristine beach. 

Ovi, Khan and the extraction team escape to Mumbai, as Asif watches the departing helicopter from the distance. Eight months later, and Asif is in a lavish restaurant, and taking a toilet break he is shot clean through the head at point blank range by Khan, who then shoots his lifeless body again in the head for good measure before exiting the mens washroom. Ovi at school again, jumps into his school's swimming pool from a diving platform and submerges himself to the bottom for a prolonged period of time. As he surfaces we see a white man watching over him, that could possibly be Tyler.

With 'Extraction' Stuntman turned Director Sam Hargrave has more than proven his ability behind the  camera as well as in front of it, with this heavily stylised, violent, bloody, take no prisoners approach to the fast paced action genre, just as Chad Stahelski did with the hugely popular and successful 'John Wick' franchise. And much of the fist fights, the gun play, the close quarter combat and the ever mounting body count as seen throughout 'Extraction' come straight out of the 'John Wick' playbook and there is nothing wrong with that, as Oscar Wilde once said 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery . . . '. This film is two hours worth of relentless action that doesn't let up for too long before the next set piece that Hargrave delivers with a keen eye for the detail, the authenticity and for keeping his target audience duly entertained. And Chris Hemsworth as the emotionally drained, world weary, kill or be killed hardened combat soldier gives a convincing performance that gives John Wick a run for his box office money. And with that ending, the Russo's, Hargrave, Hemsworth and Netflix might just have found the next action hero franchise. 

'Extraction' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online- 

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 22nd December 2016.

As another year draws to a close I take this opportunity to wish my loyal and ever expanding Blog readership a very Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2017 to you all. Thank-you for your support of Odeon Online in the past twelve months - it makes the writing, the research, the time and countless hours spent in a dark place with a bunch of strangers worthwhile and all the more fulfilling. It's been a big year at the movies, and 2017 promises more of the same and as long as you keep reading, I'll keep watching and writing. Thanks again, and may your festive season he fun, relaxing, safe and cinematic in some way.

This week there are three new release films ahead of the Boxing Day rush, and all three are character studies centering around everyday couples living their everyday lives but challenged in some way. The first sees an aspiring prolific poet who loses his complete works, only to be given some sort of salvation by a Japanese mystery man when he least expected it. Then a true life drama bio-pic of inter-racial marriage when it was truly frowned up on by family, Governments and the laws of the land, and then next is a French film of a random encounter of two people that has far reaching and unexpected consequences for them both as they get to know each other.

Three films then to tempt you out to your local movie theatre in the lead up to Christmas, together with a haul of other great cinema content still out of general release and as Reviewed and Previewed between these pages. Remember too that your constructive, relevant, pertinent feedback is always warmly welcomed when you have sat through your film of choice in the week ahead. Simply leave a Comment below this or any other Post - we'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, enjoy your movie.

'PATERSON' (Rated M) - Written and Directed by Jim Jarmusch, this film competed for the Palme D'Or at this years Cannes Film Festival and it walked away with the Palm Dog Award for the performance of the dog, Marvin, who plays an important role in the film's story. Here we have Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver living in the city of Paterson, New Jersey, and the film charts a week in the life of the man who drives his bus and writes poetry in between shifts, or when inspiration takes him. He records his poetic thoughts in a notebook, based on his observations of life as he passes it by, and the idle chatter of his passengers. Each day after work he takes his dog Marvin for a walk around the block stopping off at his favoured jazz bar for a beer and to observe the conversations and the comings & goings of the other patrons to the bar with the owner Doc (Barry Shabaka Henley).

His wife Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) is his biggest fan of his poetry and she urges him to get his work published or at least copy his material. He finally relents and agrees to copy his work, but returning home one evening later in the week after the couple have shared a evening out together, they discover that Marvin has ripped to shreds Paterson's note book, destroying all of his poetry. The next day a forlorn Paterson takes solace at his favourite beauty spot overlooking The Great Falls of the Passaic River where he encounters a mysterious Japanese man who is reading the works of his own favourite Poet William Carlos Williams, and the mystery man hands him an empty notebook as a gift. Hailed as Driver's best performance to date, and one of Jarmusch's finest works also, this is a slow burn movie where very little happens, but it is an intense character study that is restrained, thoughtful and a celebration of a simple life.

'A UNITED KINGDOM' (Rated PG) - Directed by Amma Asante and based on the real life story of the inter-racial romance that developed in 1948 between Sir Seretse Khama who was born into one of the more powerful of the royal families of the then British Protectorate of Bechuanaland, and educated in South Africa and in the United Kingdom, he returned, with a popular but controversial bride, Ruth Williams, a Lloyds of London clerk, to lead his country's race for independence. He founded the Botswana Democratic Party in 1962 and became Prime Minister in 1965. In 1966, Botswana gained independence and Seretse Khama became its first President. This is that story of Seretse (David Oyelowo) and Ruth (Rosmaund Pike) and how their love for each other was frowned upon by their respective families, and the Governments of South Africa and Great Britain at the time. Defying their families, apartheid and the British Empire the pair move from their exile back to their African Kingdom to take on the mantle of power following Botswana's independence. The film also stars Tom Felton, Nicholas Lyndhurst and Jessica Oyelowo. The film Premiered at TIFF in September, saw its UK release in November and is released Stateside in February 2017. The film has so far received generally positive reviews.

'ROSALIE BLUM' (Rated M) - this French foreign language film was released in late March this year in France and has been touring around the festival circuit ever since gaining much critical praise in the process. Although released officially this week, it has been showing for some weeks already at selected cinemas around the country. Based on the trilogy of graphic novels by Camille Jourdy and written for the big screen and also Directed in his debut by Julien Rappeneau this comedy/drama tells the story in three chapters of Vincent Machot (Kyan Khojandi) a 30+ year old hairdresser whose life revolves around his work, his overbearing mother and a cousin who is trying to set up Vincent with the prefect date. One day when running an errand for his mother, he happens on Rosalie Blum (Noemie Lvovsky) a grocery store worker and their eyes meet. Vincent is convinced they have met before, but knows not when, where or how. He becomes intrigued by Rosalie and starts obsessing about her, to a point where he begins following her. What ensues are a series of dramatic, adventurous and funny coincidences that ultimately bring the pair together and change their lives thereafter.

With three films taking us up to Christmas, and a slew of new releases coming your way on Boxing Day too. Keep watching for more Previews, Reviews and updates, and in the meantime, I'll see you sometime in the coming week, at the Odeon.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-