WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Extraction, now streaming on Netflix.
Netflix's Extraction is a bullet-ridden, explosion-filled action flick focusing on Chris Hemsworth's Tyler, a black market mercenary, who seems to have a death wish. He's contracted by his handler Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) to rescue Ovi Jr. (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) after the boy is kidnapped and held in Bangladesh by his imprisoned father's rival, Amir (Priyanshu Painyuli).
But after extracting the kid from Amir's goons in Dhaka, Tyler runs into problems. His buddy Gaspar (David Harbour) promises haven but tries to betray him for a $10 million bounty. This leads to a fracas with Ovi killing Gaspar and Tyler now forced to work with Saju (Randeep Hooda), one of Ovi Sr.'s operatives. What ensues is an intense finale with many casualties, a couple of key sacrifices, and a huge mystery we never get answered.
SAJU'S BIG MOMENT
Early on, Saju kills off Tyler's extraction crew and tries to take Ovi himself because the father can't afford the full fee. That led to Tyler brutally wounding Saju, who now reveals he had to do what his boss said or else his own family would be murdered back in Mumbai. Tyler forgives Saju and draws fire away from the duo as they try to cross a bridge to get to Nik's team.
Saju cuts a bloody path while waiting for Tyler but the numbers are just too much. He hides the kid in a bus and tries to attract the soldiers' attention, and while he succeeds in killing them on the ground, we get a moment fit for The Departed when a sniper blows Saju's brains out in a shocking scene. It's quite unexpected but Nik, knowing Saju died a hero, takes revenge by sniping the killer herself. It's a huge blow because Saju became Ovi's caretaker when his dad entered jail.
TYLER FINDS PEACE
Midway through, Tyler has the option of leaving Ovi behind and getting out when the fee got canceled, but he remembers how he abandoned his son, who died of lymphoma at six. Tyler went to war in Afghanistan as he was too coward to stay by his wife's side for the tragedy and seeing as he wasn't there when his son died, he wants to make sure Ovi gets home. Tyler breaks his own code, as it's now personal, and finally reaches the bridge to help the kid.
He racks up a hefty body count but he's eventually shot in the neck by Farhad (Suraj Rikame), one of Amir's child soldiers who Tyler beat up earlier. Farhad's crew isn't close enough to finish the job, though, and as Tyler sees Ovi reaching Nik safely, he begins to remember the dream which haunted him for most of the film. It's a vision of his blonde-haired son on the beach and Tyler finally finds peace within his tormented soul, falling over the bridge and into the river below. Farhad monitors the waters as it seems Tyler's dead, but he knows Amir will be pissed Ovi escaped.
IS IT A MIRAGE?
Amir is at a cultural show in Bangladesh months later, basking in his victory, but when he goes to the toilet, Nik emerges in an elegant gown. She pumps a few bullets in him using her silencer, exacting revenge for Tyler as she knows Ovi would always be in danger if Amir remained alive. It's hinted Nik and Tyler also had a romance in the past so it's double the satisfaction to her.
The film ends with Ovi, who was super-shy, at a community pool, jumping off and reaching the bottom. There, he sits underwater for a bit but when he comes up, we see a blurred figure looking on that looks like Tyler before the movie cuts to the credits. It's open-ended but it's hard to see Tyler surviving so many gunshots and a watery plunge. However, there's some symbolism to it as Tyler loved staying at the bottom of rivers and lakes, so this could be Ovi showing how courageous he's gotten. When he surfaces, it appears he's hallucinating Tyler in a moment of tribute, as ghosts haunting loved ones is a major theme.
Director Sam Hargrave did say in an interview, though, if viewers want Tyler to be alive, they could use this to create that scenario. These fans would want to think he sat at the bottom of the Bangladeshi river and somehow survived to make it back to Ovi, but one has to believe if Tyler was alive, he'd kill Amir himself.
Directed by Sam Hargrave and written by Joe Russo, Extraction stars Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Manoj Bajpayee, Randeep Hooda, Pankaj Tripathi, Derek Luke, Marc Donato and David Harbour. It is currently available on Netflix.