Extraction, the feature directorial debut from Sam Hargrave, features a slightly ambiguous ending for its hero, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth). Released on Netflix, the action thriller follows Tyler on a mercenary mission to rescue Ovi Mahajan (Rudhraksh Jaiswal), the teenage son of a gang leader, who has been captured by a rival drug lord. Still haunted by the loss of his own son, Tyler puts his life on the line to get Ovi home safe. But while it looks like Tyler has been killed in Extraction's climactic third act, the final shot of the movie suggests he may not be dead after all.
Extraction is based on a graphic novel called Ciudad that was co-written by Ande Parks with Avengers: Endgame directors Anthony and Joe Russo. The latter wrote the script for the movie and the Russo brothers produced it as one of multiple collaborations with Netflix. Extraction has a couple of major differences from Ciudad, being set in Dhaka, Bangladesh, rather than the city of Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, and with Tyler escorting a boy instead of a girl.
Despite those changes, Extraction ends in more or less the same way that Ciudad does. Tyler teams up with Saju (Randeep Hooda) in a last-ditch effort to help Ovi escape Dhaka by crossing one of the bridges out of the city. Saju is shot in the head and killed by one of drug lord Amir Asif's (Priyanshu Painyuli) men, as Tyler's fellow mercenaries arrive at the other end of the bridge, led by Tyler's friend Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani). Just as Ovi reaches safety, Tyler receives an apparently fatal bullet wound to the neck, courtesy of Asif's young henchman Farhad (Suraj Rikame).
Tyler uses the last of his strength to make it to the railing, where he finds that the memories of his dead son that have been haunting him throughout the movie finally come into focus. He falls off the bridge and plummets into the water, disappearing below the surface. Given the extent of his injuries it seems impossible that he could have survived - but Tyler has spent the whole movie beating impossible odds.
Midway through Extraction, Tyler and Ovi are taken into the supposed protection of Gaspar (David Harbour), an old friend and fellow mercenary whose life was once saved by Tyler, and who therefore owes him a big favor. After Ovi has gone to bed, Gaspar bluntly states that the kid is a "walking corpse," since even if Tyler somehow succeeds in getting him home he's still a target for one of the most powerful drug lords in Bangladesh, and his father (who is in prison) doesn't have the resources to protect him. This created an obvious problem for Extraction's ending to resolve after Tyler succeeds in getting Ovi out of Dhaka.
Since Tyler is otherwise indisposed, it's Nik who ends up taking care of the problem. In another scene lifted from the graphic novel, she confronts Asif in the men's room at a restaurant after the dust has settled and swiftly executes him, extinguishing his grudge against Ovi's father along with his life. The money for protecting Ovi ran dry at the start of the mission, so like the assault on the bridge, this is more pro bono work on Nik's part. With Tyler apparently dead, it seems that she considers it her duty to make sure his sacrifice wasn't in vain.
Extraction's epilogue takes place eight months after Tyler's apparent death, with Asif's execution cross-cut with a scene of Ovi at a swimming pool. He jumps into the water and lets himself sink to the bottom of the pool for a few moments before reemerging. When he does, there's an out-of-focus figure in the background watching him who looks an awful lot like Tyler, and the movie ends with Ovi turning to look at the figure. The obvious implication is that Tyler survived his multiple gunshot wounds (and other assorted injuries), using his dive into the water to escape the final battle after seeing Ovi to safety.
This ending is a lot less ambiguous in Ciudad, which features a final scene of Tyler in hospital recovering from his injuries and giving instructions for his young charge to be taken care of. Extraction's ending instead leaves the question of Tyler's survival lingering until the last few seconds of the movie. Assuming that this isn't just some other random man watching Ovi at the pool, it's pretty clear-cut that Tyler is still alive and has returned for a reunion with Ovi.
Ovi's final scene in Extraction mirrors Tyler's first scene, when he jumps off a cliff into a deep lagoon and lets himself sink to the bottom before resurfacing. Throughout the movie water symbolizes two key concepts: courage and death. Having lost his wife and son, Tyler at the start of the movie has lost all his fear of death and is even (as Nik suggests) actively seeking it out. For Tyler, water is associated with his memories of his son at the beach, and his jump into the water at the start is a flirtation with death. Throughout the movie his memories of his son are out of focus, and only become clear just before he falls into the river at the end of the movie (naturally leading the audience to believe that he's joined his son in death).
In contrast to Tyler leaping fearlessly into water, Ovi at the start of Extraction lacks the courage even to go over and talk to a girl who is smiling at him. Over the course of the movie, Tyler discovers a new reason to live in saving Ovi's life (something that he couldn't do with his own son), while Ovi's repeated brushes with death strip away his fears. Ovi's jump into the water from the high dive, his moment of silence underneath the water, and his eventual resurfacing are all symbolic of the courage he's gained. For Ovi the film is a coming of age story - albeit a rather violent one.
Piecing these two arcs together, the final shot of Tyler watching Ovi at the swimming pool is as much a symbol of the mercenary's impact on his life as it is a literal reveal that Tyler has survived.
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April 25, 2020 at 05:07AM
