At
last Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh became the subject matter of a Hollywood
action movie. After visiting a lot of African countries and Iraq or
Afghanistan, the American culture industry found the existence of a small
country (big in population size) in South Asia to explore a crime thriller. Though
most of the actions of the movie occurred in Dhaka, apart from some plate
shots, entire shooting took place in India and Thailand.
When
the story of a Hollywood action/thriller movie crosses the border, it portrays
a country as the villain’s habitat and a white man as the savior (he would be nearly
a superman) of the victim. Under this formula, Dhaka is treated as the habitat
of the villain, the drug lord Asif who kidnapped and held Ovi, the son of the
drug lord from Mumbai, India for ransom. Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), a
black-market mercenary was hired (from Australia) to ‘extract’ the boy from the
drug racket in Dhaka. He all alone, remotely backed by his team, rescued the
boy and being severely injured, he fell down in the river from the bridge in
the outskirt of the city, which was locked down by the law enforcing agencies
with the order of the drug lord Asif.
The
director Sam Hargrave, primarily the stunt coordinator of Russo Brothers (who
are also the leading producers, among many, of the film), the directors of
Avenger series (Joe Russo was the scriptwriter of Extraction), was more focused in the action scenes instead of
taking care of the storyline. Tyler all alone fought against military, police,
and an anonymous elite force (suggesting Rapid Action Battalion), except a
support from Saju (Ranadeep Hooda) who, after had been threatened by his boss,
the drug lord in Mumbai jail and the father of the boy, was also in his
personal mission to rescue the boy.
The
director tried hard to create the crowded and grimy streets and shabby buildings
of Dhaka in Ban Pong, Thailand and Ahmedabad, India, but a Dhakaite would
easily find some errors (such as Hindi signs in the street or ‘Allah Sarvo Shoktiman’ (আল্লাহ সার্ভ শক্তিমান) written in Bengali on the body of CNG auto rickshaw). The Dhakaite
Bengali accent of the characters was not authentic (Hindi intonation marred the
Bengali), yet it was better than any Indian production seen earlier. The
problem of the story is, Bangladesh is no Columbia, a drug-lord is not a
character you would find in Bangladesh who could keep the entire law enforcing
agency in his pocket. Tyler’s rescue mission could be a little bit of more
based on intelligence instead of bullets. Also, the members of the law
enforcing agencies could be killed less. In the action movies produced in
Hollywood, to valorize the hero, ‘almost impossible’ kind of actions take
place. In Mission impossible 6
(Fallout, 2018), Ethan Hunt and his team killed a few members of French police
to snatch away a ‘global criminal’ Solomon Lane. Here to rescue a boy, from a
criminal group, Tyler killed a few gangsters and countless numbers of police
and military. The research team of the film should have known that the Pahela Baishakh (the Bengali new year) rally
do not take place in the night and Dhakaites do not enjoy Hindi movie songs all
the time, they have also their own pop music icons like James and Momtaj.
The
only strength of the storyline was when Tyler came out from his hard shell of a
mercenary who rescues people in exchange of money. After knowing that he had
already lost his chance to get the money, he continued his mission. The boy
reminded him his dead son of the same age. He admitted to Ovi in the midst of
the rescue journey that he was not brave at all, rather he was the opposite –
his wife left him and his son died due to severe illness. He cannot hold back
his dear ones.
Other
than this aspect of the plot it was full of action, killing and thrill which
made it just another typical action movie of Hollywood. Dhaka as a filthy city
would satisfy the orientalist gaze of the audience of the west, the filth of a
Third World city might appear as an exotic item to them also, which must not be
loved by the Bangladeshi people after watching it on Netflix where the film was released on April 24, 2020.
First Published: The Daily Star, 27 April, 2020, Link: https://www.thedailystar.net/online/news/extraction-white-mans-rescue-mission-filthy-south-asian-city-1897336
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