BEFORE: It's the last film for September, with Chris Hemsworth carrying over from "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot". On one level, I know I should be happy, because this perfectly sets me up for the October horror chain to start in two days time, and I've got a clear path to the end of the year, even though Disney moved "Black Widow" from November to next May.
But it's still going to eat at me, isn't it? The fact that "Hellboy" is sitting there on my DVR, and if I follow my rules, that I made up, I can't watch it. "Hellboy" was programmed right after "Black Widow", with David Harbour carrying over. And what stinks is that David Harbour is in today's movie, which makes me feel like there should have been a way. Months ago I came up with some alternate plan that moved "Hellboy" up to today's slot, or someplace close to it - only when I reviewed that plan a second time, I couldn't find the connection on the other end. Did I ever have one, or was it just wishful thinking that one would present itself? Did I mistakenly believe that some actor or actress, like Rosario Dawson, had a role in "Hellboy"? It's annoying that I can't remember what I was thinking at the time that led me to rely on a path that didn't exist.
I worked on it a bit today, one last futile hope - and sure, I found a couple of paths that would allow me to move "Hellboy" here, but none of them fully work. Frankie Shaw from "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" was in a film called "Knife Fight" with David Harbour, which would link to "Hellboy" and then "Extraction" and allow me to continue - but should I let the linking force me to watch a film I don't have a copy of, and possibly have no interest in? Then there's Sasha Lane from "Hearts Beat Loud", who does have a role in "Hellboy" - but of course I can't erase the fact that I've watched four films since then.
So maybe I just need to suck it up - "Hellboy", like so many other things, is re-scheduled for next year, and I have to deal with that. It was always an outlier, anyway - a sort-of horror film that didn't fit into October, it was hanging out in November as a back-up plan after "Black Widow" moved to November. It's connected to that Marvel film on my schedule, so I should just be happy that the collateral damage of the "Black Widow" delay is only taking one other film along with it.
THE PLOT: Tyler Rake, a fearless black market mercenary, embarks on the most deadly extraction of his career when he's enlisted to rescue the kidnapped son of an imprisoned international crime lord.
AFTER: Again, I'm trying my best to be happy, but these days, that's just not easy. I've got election anxiety on top of pandemic anxiety on top of partial-unemployment anxiety, so really, I feel like my nerves are getting stretched very thin. I'm just a big ball of worry these days, and spending 4 out of 7 days at home still isn't calming me down at all, it just feels like it's making things worse. Every day I don't go out and get some new part-time job is painful, but any job I take, like if I go work at a store or something, just increases my risk, and Covid rates are starting to creep up again in New York City, at least in some neighborhoods. We're supposed to enter a new phase tomorrow, with limited indoor dining made available, but I bet if the citywide positive rates go up over 2% or 3%, they're going to reconsider that move if they make the connection. (I thinking, bring on the horror movies for 2020, because at this point, what could be scarier than real life?)
"Extraction" didn't do much to alleviate my stress levels - I guess maybe it was an OK distraction, because it did allow me to focus less on my personal stress by showing me somebody else's. This film happens to be the most popular Netflix original film at the moment - or is it of all time? - but it's also the second film I've seen this year about someone who's an expert at rescuing people being held for ransom, the first was "Proof of Life". There's also some stuff in here about teens being trained as soldiers, so I guess it's also got similar themes to "Beasts of No Nation", though it's not set in Africa but Bangladesh instead. So it's those two films mixed in with a dash of "Slumdog Millionaire" - just kidding, it's got nothing to do with that one.
Tyler Rake is a mercenary soldier, in desperate need of money - or perhaps in desperate need of being able to handle a job that nobody else can handle, it's maybe even a little bit of both. There's some suggestion that he's secretly looking for the job that will take him down, but I'm not sure I buy that motivation, because there are probably easier ways to kill yourself, like, say, not wearing a mask to a political rally these days, but that's a separate issue. When the teen son of a Bangladeshi drug lord is held for ransom by another gangster, Tyler and his team are called in - because they'll cost money, too, but can you really trust the other gangster to let the kid go, once the ransom has been paid?
Tyler does the job, he locates where the teen is being held, infiltrates the site and takes them all down, the first of many thrilling action sequences where it's basically him against everyone, and he tends to come out on top. But after transmitting evidence that the mission has succeeded, something goes wrong, and his team is attacked by other forces hired by the kid's father. I was very confused at this point, but reading the plot summary on Wikipedia suggests that after Tyler got Ovi free from the kidnappers, it made sense for his father's forces to take his team down, because then they don't have to pay him. OK, now it's clear, things were just a bit foggy during the movie, there was a lot going on in the action sequences, and not much time spent on exposition.
Tyler's support team tells him repeatedly to abandon the job, leave the kid behind and walk away, but he can't - this is not who he is, plus he's haunted by the memory of his own son, who got sick after Tyler left his family. So instead he's challenged with somehow getting Ovi across Dhaka when simply everyone is looking for them - the kid's father's forces, the rival drug lord's forces, the police who are probably on the payroll of one of the gangsters, and then there's the army of street kids who've been pressed into similar service. Tyler's forced to call on an old teammate who lives in the city, and is out of the extraction business, plus they may not have parted on good terms, making an already tough situation even tougher, and there goes my stress level again.
More elaborate fight sequences and one unlikely team-up later, and Tyler has to decide what's more important, getting paid or making sure that the kid is brought to safety, because it seems at this point it's impossible to accomplish both things. It all leads to a big showdown on one of the blocked-off vehicle-filled bridges leading out of the city, which isn't really any kind of spoiler because the film actually STARTS with a flash-forward of this battle, then spends the next two hours jumping back to explain how Tyler got there. This is a valid storytelling format, commonly seen on the "splash page" of comic books, but it's been gaining more exposure in movies over the last few years. The theory is that you give the viewers a little taste of what's to come, even if that taste is very confusing, so they'll be eager to know how we're all going to get to that extreme set of circumstances.
The exciting car chases and indoor shoot-outs seem extremely complicated - it's very possible a ton of special effects were used to transition between exterior shots to the interior shot within a vehicle, and then back out again. This technique can very impressive unless you should happen to think a bit too much about, "Hey, how did they DO that?" at which point you're kind of aware that an effects shot is in play, and that can take you out of the film's internal reality for just a bit. So I recommend trying to not think about that too much, however my recommendation itself might make that impossible. Umm, sorry.
Seeing Hemsworth in action, and David Harbour as another actor who was JUST ABOUT poised to become part of the MCU in "Black Widow" before the quarantine restrictions got extended, has really driven home to me that this will, unfortunately, be the first year in ages that I haven't seen a movie based on Marvel comics. Again, this is very distressing for me, but some sacrifices have to be made. I wasn't even able to see "New Mutants" this year, so I'm eager for 2021 and/or a Covid vaccine to be available, so we can get movie theaters in NYC open again. In the ongoing battle between Marvel and DC, it looks like DC's going to win 2020 hands-down, even if I don't get to see "Wonder Woman 1984" until next year. I did a whole week of DC-based films in January, including "Joker", "Shazam!" and 6 animated films with Batman or Superman. Then I followed up in May with "Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay", and I've still got "Birds of Prey" scheduled for October. Oh, it's painful for me as a Marvel fan (in the comic-book world, I probably read about 80% to 90% Marvel) but here's hoping that Marvel can come back strong on my 2021 schedule.
Also starring Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Golshifteh Farahani (last seen in "The Upside"), Pankaj Tripathi, David Harbour (last seen in "State of Play"), Priyanshu Painyuli, Sudipto Balav, Adam Bessa, Shataf Figar, Suraj Rikame, Neha Mahajan, Sam Hargrave (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Abhinav Srivastava, Rob Collins, Wayne Blair, Chris Jai Alex, Vonzell Carter.
RATING: 6 out of 10 Oxycontin tablets
No comments:
Post a Comment