Chris Hemsworth (Thor) stars in this tightly choreographed action thriller about Tyler Rake, a ruthlessly efficient but emotionally constipated hired gun. Hemsworth is tasked with recovering the teenage son of Indian drug lord Ovi Mahajan Sr (Pankaj Tripathi). Ovi Jr (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) is being held hostage in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by a rival gang; in the film’s most bravura set piece, Tyler “extracts” him in real time.
First-time director Sam Hargrave draws on his formidable career as a stunt coordinator for several of the Marvel movies, shooting athletic combat sequences with a handheld camera at close range. The effect is immersive and high-impact. A shame, then, about the po-faced script, written by Joe Russo (co-director of Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War) and adapted from his comic, Ciudad. The optics of a white mercenary raining down bullets on anonymous brown bodies aside, the film’s solemn tone does the usually charismatic Hemsworth no favours.
