I dove into Extraction with low expectations, having recently watched Spencer Confidential. I readied myself for another middle aged white man ex-spec ops badass to save the day.

Aaaaaaand I got more or less what I expected, with a few exceptions.

Extraction straight away had me hooked by putting Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth in a leading man role as an Australian. Being Australian myself, it was refreshing and really cool to see a realistic Aussie accent on the hero of a fancy mainstream action movie.

This surpassing of expectations straight away sets the tone for the rest of the film. So while the movie hits many of the same old familiar beats we’re used to with this kind of thing, including “surprise” betrayals and a cartoonishly evil villain, it livens up a little when it strays off the beaten path.

In particular the filmography of the action scenes thoroughly impressed me. While it’s certainly hard to improve on something that has been perfected across hundreds of big budget films, I really enjoyed the over-the-shoulder camera that followed the action from many dynamic angles without any jump cuts. The action felt well choreographed and easy to follow. The car chases also felt unique for a movie, feeling a lot like a video game rail-shooting sequence. These incredibly well put together and captured fight scenes and flight scenes are by far the most memorable part of Extraction, and definitely worth watching for.

However one area that Extracted tried and fell a bit short was character development and emotional moments. While many action films lean too hard into the harsh, represses-his-emotions side of their male leads, Extracted tries a bit too hard to create connections between characters that don’t have much chemistry and display emotional moments that just aren’t that emotional. The result is that these cliched scenes feel forced and fake. That’s not to say that Extracted shouldn’t be applauded for its efforts, as it certainly seemed like the director and actors were giving their all to portray genuine heart. Only that for a film that tries in many ways to break the mould, reusing tired tropes like the White Saviour and Bruiser-With-A-Soft-Centre does not lend itself to authenticity.

With that said, Extraction is a truly engaging film in most part because of the ways it does feel authentic. As mentioned above, Chris Hemsworth’s accent is very accurate in a way that I just cannot praise enough. The director seems to have allowed him to speak naturally rather than have him ham it up for the audience, which is common with Aussie main characters. But that’s just one of many ways the film pulls you in. The double cross at the start of the mission is unexpected, affects the entire movie and plays out in a way that actually feels messy and realistic, rather than happening just for the sake of there being a double cross. The character being Extracted is given a starring role in most of the touching moments, which is executed well despite there being a logical disconnect with the character’s age and their level of emotional intelligence.

But by far my favourite surprise of the film was the turn around of Hemsworth’s character teaming up with a former adversary. Seeing as how these lone wolf action movies usually play out exactly as the name implies, I was not expecting Randeep Hooda’s character to have such an impact. Where Hemsworth proves himself to be a capable action star in the style of Keanu Reeves’ John Wick, Hooda matches him beat for beat and that for me was the absolute highlight of the whole experience.

So, if you’ve got some time on your hands and a hankering for some intense gunfight scenes, check out Extraction, I’m glad that I did.