Extraction is late-era Bruce Willis so it comes prejudged. Which, it must be said, is entirely Willis’s own fault. He didn’t have to sign on for so many sub-par actioners. Surely someone somewhere was offering him a decent gig at a decent screw? Maybe not.
It also, on account of subsequent developments in Willis’s health, comes pre-forgiven.
Anyhow, in keeping with many other “starring Bruce Willis” movies, this one doesn’t really star Bruce Willis. He plays a decommissioned CIA agent and the real star of the movie is Kellan Lutz, as the son of the retired dude. A desk jockey at the CIA, Harry Turner really wants to be a field agent like his old man, Leonard, who we’ve seen neutralising an entire room of bad guys with only a ballpoint pen in the film’s opening moments. Who gives an angry-looking Bruce Willis – tied to a chair or not – a pen and then stands that close to him?
The IMDb trivia for this movie says that Willis’s scenes were all shot in a day. I doubt that’s true. He’s in it a bit more than that, and what he contributes is good, classic Bruce Willis stuff – a bemused glance, a quizzical stare, a cocked eyebrow, some gruff father/son advice once the two men meet, which they eventually do, both tied up together on chairs.
To get to this point, chip-off-the-old-block Harry is going to have to break all the protocols of the CIA and go completely rogue in pursuit of some bad guys who a) have his dad (again!) and b) have a machine that can hack any encryption in the world and thereby start World War Three. Along for the ridde, to kick some butts, provide a romantic frisson and deliver quips is Victoria (Gina Carano), an old flame and CIA agent who’s also prepared to go completely against her training and embark on a mad transnational mission.
It doesn’t make much sense but does it have to? Are we really here to parse geopolitics or CIA operating procedures? We are not. We are here to see bad guys having their asses handed to them and other familiarities of the genre – naked women poledancing, a car chase, and so on. If it hadn’t been made in 2015, before the era of ChatGPT, you’d swear it was AI written.
I did not like Steven C Miller’s direction much. He moves the camera when it needs to be still and is so close to the action, and there is quite a bit of action, that it’s hard to see what’s going on. Call it impressionistic, if you’re feeling charitable. I did like DP Brandon Cox’s lighting, rich and vibrantly colourful, as if this were a film with a bigger budget. I also liked Lydia Hull as a wisecracking bimbo friend of Victoria. Lutz is also entirely plausible as the sort of guy who walks into a biker bar and takes them all on single-handed – go Harry! Carano I have a soft spot for. As a seasoned stuntperson she knows how to do action. If only Miller would let us see her.
The score, by Ryan Dodson, pays it out by the synthetic metre, often resorting to a 1980s synth-sequencer sound that tells us where this film’s heart truly lies.
Yes, but is it any good? Not really. Does it pass the time? Yes, in a pleasingly familiar way, like taking a warm bath in your comfy slippers. Somewhere in the back office someone knows what they want. The production team is Emmett/Furla Oasis, who do a lot of these sort of things (along with the odd prestige item for the likes of Scorsese) and occasionally hit paydirt – 2 Guns, Lone Survivor and Boss Level are all theirs.
This is none of those, but if you like Willis (what there is of him), Lutz and Carano, Extraction may be capable of extracting the money from your wallet. Though, seriously, have you not seen Boss Level yet?
Extraction – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
