Extraction

Extraction was an entertaining action film that was just fun. It has a serious plot but the film never takes it self too seriously. All the actors do a great job. Sean Astin, Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones all do their thing. But it was the unknown stars of the film that really stole the show. I didn't know who Jon Foo or Falk Hentschel was before this. But I do now. Foo is a beast. And Falk has the looks and acting chops to be a breakout star. I just saw he's also in the new Nolan- produced Johnny Depp film TRANSCENDENCE.

The tone of the film starts out serious, but ever so naturally, the film lightens its mood and becomes wonderfully comedic. It, however, never strays from the action nor does it forget it's plot. Some nice story twists and turns keep you guessing.

I gave it 9 out of 10. Very fun solid piece. The first film I ever watched on Crackle. I'll watch more from now on. I'll also be on the lookout for more Foo and Hentschel.

While this was clearly not a big-budget, blockbuster, mega-action, summer-release, slug fest, it was a surprisingly good movie. Relative newcomer Jon Foo gives a veteran performance with an excellent display of his martial arts skills and better-than-workman-like acting skills. Sean Astin and Danny Glover have some unfortunately somewhat two-dimensional roles, but Joanne Kelly, who it's nice to see is still finding work after Warehouse 13, brings a Myka Bering-esque likability to her role. For me, the lowest point in this movie is the tiresome Vinnie Jones. If you're not familiar with his work, just watch this movie and you'll have a pretty good handle on it. (yawn) Meanwhile, the story itself is not totally far-fetched and the fight choreography and special effects are definitely up to snuff. All-in-all, it's a good, Saturday afternoon, nothing else to do way to spend an hour and 45 minutes.

I don't know what possessed these folks to present this fairly well acted flick as a pilot but they did. In spite of the very awkward sound track (TV music) and commercial dead space, the plot and acting kept me going.

I was please that the language was respectful (probably a result of future TV airing) of potential small fry viewers.

As for the plot, well not insane or anything and not, well I will let you decide that.

Right now it's a 5.2 rating, I think that's right on the money.

The opening seen has a guy in a brothel with a hooker on him and that's it for any nudity waste up in the very dark room 10 seconds probably. I would rate it a very weak PG-13 otherwise.

Saturday afternoon, cheap theater

I have seen action on screen in all its forms. Whether it was Bruce Willis fighting Germans in a building or Steven Seagal killing rouge Navy Mercenaries on a boat, I've seen it. However for the past few years, aside from legendary actioneers like Stallone or Schwarzenegger keeping the genre alive, action film have gone really downhill. It is a category of film making that has almost disappeared entirely because of guys like Peter Berg and Louis Leterrier, who instead of having quality actors doing real stunts in places other people wouldn't think possible, they place pretty boys like Jamie Foxx and Sam Worthington into lackluster scenarios and just let their doubles do the work while they capture the "action" with the most annoyingly shaky camera work in order to make the action more "realistic." Ironically enough however, in reality, its all BS. Now in comes Tony Giglio, writer and director of the amazingly underrated 2005 action thriller Chaos, with his new film Extraction, a old-school die hard action film that pulls no punches, literately. The fight sequences make guys like Jason Bourne look too liberal. It is hard to believe a film that was shot in 18 days and made on only a million dollars could come out this good and deliver action as rock solid as this. With almost no CGI and some of the greatest martial art scenes ever filmed, fans of the right kind of action movies will dig Extraction. With cool performances by Vinnie Jones and Jon Foo, this is Die Hard meets Delta Force meets the Raid: Redemption. In summation folks, why Tony Giglio isn't directing Expendables 3, I'll never know.

I was not expecting any Oscar performance from this movie, but there was nothing good about this movie, other than the appearance of Danny Glover. I watched the movie thinking there was going to be some decent action, and fighting scenes, but I was disappointed. The fighting scenes looked like the B-version of a WWE fight. It was easy to see that the fighters were slowing down for each other during attacks, waiting for the opponent to counter-attack. Most of the times, the strikes not making contact with their target were clearly visible. At least try to fool your audience a little bit, I am not sure how much it costs to cut, and edit fighting scenes, but do it for one fight.