Hollywood may be in a drought as far as action movies go, but Chris Hemsworth has come in full force to alleviate this with Netflix’s Extraction. The new release is directed by MCU stuntman Sam Hargrave, written by Joe Russo and produced by both the Russo Brothers. And doesn’t hold back on its bloody kills, reaching a body count into the triple digits.
The hosts of CinemaBlend’s podcast ReelBlend sat down with the Endgame directors Russo Brothers to talk about Extraction, Joe Russo spoke about the massive body count. In his words:
For us, it’s certainly a hyper adrenalized story. And that's what we liked. We wanted something super aggressive. It's about a corrupt patriarchy and this damaged character. And so we really wanted to put him in a pressure cooker, an intense situation and a heightened level of action. Everyone keeps track [of a movie’s body count]. I think there was something called The Carnage Document that they would [use to] keep track of everything that happened in the film. I can't remember who was keeping track of it, or where it went, but I know it came across in my emails at one point.
Coming off making a few Marvel films, it sounds like the Russos really wanted to push the limits of the action film. Joe Russo adapted Extraction on the 2014 graphic novel Ciudad the Russo Brothers co-wrote with Ande Parks. They were looking for something “super aggressive” and intense and Chris Hemsworth’s Tyler Rake, a black market mercenary who is hired to rescue the son of a drug kingpin did the trick.
Extraction hit Netflix on Friday to impressive Rotten Tomatometer scores: 64% from critics and 72% from audiences. CinemaBlend's Sean O’Connell gave the film 3.5 out of 5 in his review calling it “relentless”, “bone-breaking” and “raw.” Among other reviews, TV Guide felt Extraction was purely kills over an actual film, saying it “feels better suited for the PS4 than the cinema.”
The action flick features the talents of Sam Hargrave in his directorial debut after an impressive career as a stunt coordinator on films such as Atomic Blonde, the Hunger Games films and everyone of the Russo’s MCU films.
Chris Hemsworth has called the making of Extraction “by far the most exhausting shoot” he’d ever been part of. Thor said that. The movie features an incredible 12-minute-long “oner,” which is the illusion of one massive long continuous shot that includes a car chase, knife fight and gun fight. Due to the scene not having cuts to different angles and such, Hemsworth could not use stand-ins for the filming of the ambitious sequence.
Chris Hemsworth and Sam Hargrave spoke to CinemaBlend’s Eric Eisenberg about an epic scene where the Thor actor had to fight some kids and stay tuned for the full ReelBlend interview with the Russo Brothers here on CinemaBlend. Extraction is available to stream on Netflix now.
