What interested me in watching this film was seeing Chris Hemsworth in a movie outside of Marvel and the fact that this film was produced by the Russo brothers who did amazing Marvel movies. However, this movie was a Netflix exclusive movie which is rarely a hit. The basic premise of the movie is Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) has got to extract the child of a drug lord in India who was kidnapped by the drug lord of Bangladesh for money. Simple.
Starting with the positive and probably the biggest reason why anyone wants to watch this movie, the action. This movie goes for a John Wick style of action with its incredible choreography and fast pace action. The action scenes are extremely violent and brutal which is borderline gratuitous but so entertaining. There is one particular action scene which is filmed to make it seem like an 11 minute one camera shot scene and it is really good even if the cuts are obvious. Praise should also be given to Chris Hemsworth’s performance who gives a lot of likability and charisma for his character. Additionally, it is clear that Chris did a lot of the stunt for this movie and the director utilized this properly and effectively. The soundtrack and cinematography are also pretty good especially considering the scenery and high octane action.
This is where the praise ends. How was this a screenplay/story from the Russo brothers? It’s very barebone and has a lot of forgettable dialogue. There is a plan from one of the drug lord that just feels really dumb and done so we can have a cool fight. Additionally, there are non-action moments in the movie where it just feels like time panning and slowing down the momentum. These moments would be fine if it felt like it was adding something but these moments are a bore with mediocre dialogue and boring characters that it is uninteresting. The movie is also very predictable and this is due to the fact that this movie adopts way too many cliches from older action movies but just giving a fresh coat of paint. These moments made me just wish they would just get to the next action set piece already. On that note of characters, they give some backstory for Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) and the ex-military man who was hunting him to make him sympathetic but that’s it. It would be nice to have been shown and not just told stuff about him because it just feels like a throwable line just to quickly give Tyler some characterization. What about his relationship with the mercenary girl or even David Harbour. Speaking of David Harbour even though he is a great actor, his character is incredibly forgettable. Every supporting character is forgettable to the point that I don’t really know anything about them. The kid that Tyler saves likes playing the piano and is a son of a drug lord but apart from that, we know nothing about him. I would love to know more about his character by exploring his relationship a bit more with his father and ex-military dude or even how life is like as a son of a murderous drug lord. Furthermore, the relationship between Tyler and the kid just feels incredibly rushed and unearned. They just suddenly have huge trust in each other without any conflict which just feels unnatural. A lot of critics have bashed its aimless violence but it doesn’t really bother me but I do feel that it doesn’t feel necessary a lot of the times. However, the last act of this movie gets really tedious by giving hoards of mindless goons for Tyler to kill that just kind of makes you feel numb and bored of it.
If all you want from a movie is Chris Hemsworth kicking ass then this movie is really good. The director was definitely a stunt man as this movie has great stunts which shows the experience of a veteran stunts person. However, these action scenes don’t really do something drastically new so don’t expect anything revolutionary either. The action is all this movie got going for it. If you expect a good story or good characters similar to John Wick then this movie does not have that going for it sadly.
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