Timur (Iko Uwais) and his elite squad of soldiers have been assigned a new mission by their government, to head into the jungle on a rescue mission. A team of researchers have been taken captive by Bapa and his men, and the government wants to show the world that they can be effective in these hostage situations! Timur and his men face not just the harshness of the jungle, but the cunning of Bapa who is both vicious and very clever as he leads the hostages into the jungle from camp to camp plus village to village as they get deeper and deeper into the jungle the mission becomes more and more dangerous. You see Bapa and his men outnumber the soldiers and can overrun them at any given point. Apolo is Bapa`s second in command with Fran, as the mission and the hostages go on it is apparent that Apolo and Timur know each other and Fran becomes less trusting of Apolo, who is in turmoil as he is faced with his childhood brothers. Can he do the right thing in the craziness of what is going on, as both he and Tumir are trapped in circumstances beyond their control?
The Extractor is the directorial debut of Iko Uwais; he produced the film with his team handling the action design. It does take its time to get into the action as it builds up we get to know the characters and their backgrounds firstly. Apolo (Aufa Assagaf) is the heart and soul of the film. We learn about his childhood loss that has shaped him into the man he becomes, which makes him easily manipulated by Bapa who uses his rage and twists it. Timur not only wants to rescue the hostages but he also wants to safe his childhood friend, his brother. As you’d expect from Iko and his team the action scenes are very well done. The close quarter hand to hand combat is done with the camera work complimenting it; you can see that they were trying to take the audience into the fight with the camera movement being as fluent as the choreography. The fights are very close to the camera which is distracting at first, but you do get used to it, and understand why they were shot that way. I really liked some of the more subtle moments. Like the sniper who lines up the shot, but has time to take a butterfly of his gun and set it aside. The gun fights are staged as well as the fights; with both hand to hand action and the gunfights. You can see how they tried to make them as real as they could, both the dramatic and the action scenes flow well. At a running time of just one hour and forty one minutes Iko does direct with efficiency and it is a well-paced film. I read that it is based on a real event that took place in the 90s, so you can understand the need for realism and it not directed with a heavy hand. Yes it is a bit sentimental as it goes on, but it is about brotherhood and how much that is tested in extreme circumstances. What it lacks in storytelling at times it makes up with in the heart that was put in to the making of the film by all that were involved.
All in all an enjoyable film that deserves to be seen yes it is different to what you see Iko doing before, but in a lot of ways it is similar. I am very excited to see what him and his team do next for all us action fans.
