I don’t spend a lot of my waking hours in warehouses. I think I don’t spend a lot of my sleeping hours in warehouses, either, but I can’t necessarily speak to that. That being said, I swear the warehouse in this film is reused again and again and again. In the start of the film, where CIA agent Leonard Turner (Bruce Willis) escapes … shortly thereafter where agent Turner is captured again … then where he’s held captive … is that a bad guy trope? “Dude, could you be a dear and bring the MacGuffin to the warehouse where we plan to take hostages, ‘cause that would really save us a trip? Oh, and make sure nobody knows where you are when you get captured. You’re the best! Toodles.”
The MacGuffin here is something called “Condor.” Honestly, “The Condor MacGuffin” is a much better title for this film, but nobody asked me to name it. And it’s one of those “does whatever we say it can do” MacGuffins, open the briefcase, punch in a number and *poof* look, I turned off China. Yeah, that’s how it works. Oh, and it controls all the nuclear silos? Neat trick that. I happen to know many of ours require a human key entry and a floppy disc interface. Floppy disc. And not the cut compact-sized ones, the ones that are actually floppy, like square crepes. You can use the internet to control those? No, you can’t.
The retrieval or Extraction of said MacGuffin as one might call it –if one were lame – is so important, the CIA is going to subvert FBI ground (without notifying the FBI) and put its best agent on it. Agent, singular. And Victoria Phair (Gina Carano) spends her first hours on the case making sure Harry Turner (Kellan Lutz), her ex- and the son of Leonard Turner, is not on the case. And she fails to bring transportation to the biker bar where she finds him … and fails to deter him from the case. Boy, this is stupid.
Now, why was the CIA not interested in putting Harry on the case? Because he’s “too close.” But his ex-girlfriend, who knows both Harry and Leonard, is apparently just right for the job.
Extraction is an unwieldy excuse to introduce us to the star power of leads Kellan Lutz and Gina Carano. Go ahead and bask in that glow, if you can. In both cases, I find it on par with an unreliable bathroom nightlight. I couldn’t read the first line of an eyechart one foot away in that glow. “E, I suppose, but I can’t tell if that’s what I’m seeing or if I’m just going by memory.” Gina has a fairly masculine jaw for a starlet; I don’t have a problem with that from a sex appeal POV, but if you’re gonna shove an a-typical starlet in my face, she should at least be able to act, y’know? As for Kellan, I wasn’t convinced that he could take my daughter in a fair fight. To be fair, though, my daughter is working on her jiu jitsu blue belt. Oh, and Kellan can’t act, either.
This leaves one question: what the Hell was Bruce Willis doing in this film? My latest guess is that somebody held an incriminating photo of Bruce Willis, because I cannot understand what would possess him to make this film. Guesses as to what this incriminating photo might contain? 
Bruce escaping from a hit & run scene, maybe? Bruce with some sort of farm animal, perhaps? How about Bruno proudly modeling an “I’m with her” t-shirt? Whatever this photo may or may not have contained, the producers of the “action” “thriller” Extraction got Bruce Willis to appear in a supporting role. The Bruce scenes bookend the film and I’m pretty sure all of his action was shot in one day. It shows.
Forgettable from the top down, Extraction even makes a lousy excuse for insomniacs – “it was 3 a.m. wasn’t there at least an infomercial on or something?” In the very least, I hope Bruce got his photo back.
♪I’ve got your snap shot
I keep it in my wallet
This is your big pooch screw
And it’s my pay-per-view
So now you’ll scowl for my camera
My fam is gonna love it
I’ve got this picture
It’s worse than Armageddon
Hey, look, it’s you-know-who
Goin’ down on –hey, that’s you
So just Die Hard for the camera
And make my movie better
Hey!
I did come back for you
Hey!
Look’s like you could be screwed
Hey, you’ll get it all
The negatives, prints, too
Post my crappy indie movie♫
Rated R, 82 Minutes
D: Steven C. Miller
W: Max Adams, Umair Aleem
Genre: Inventing a movie star
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The significant other to Kellan Lutz
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Die Hard fans
♪ Parody inspired by “PEG”
