Of drug-lords and danger

“Extraction”, a thriller set in Dhaka, has

angered Bangladeshis
The film gets a lot wrong about the country, but it gets a lot right, too

Books, arts and culture

Prospero

May 4th 2020

BANGLADESHIS CAN count on one hand the number of times their country has featured in a
Hollywood film. So when it was announced that a blockbuster set in Dhaka, the capital, was to
be released on Netflix, Bangladesh was abuzz with anticipation. When “Extraction” launched on
the streaming service on April 24th, however, Dhaka’s starring role resulted not in pride but
indignation. It may also have left some government officials feeling more than a little exposed.

The story follows Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth, pictured), a hardened mercenary who is
employed to retrieve the kidnapped son of an Indian drug-lord from a Bangladeshi rival. Almost
all the action unfolds in Dhaka yet none of the filming took place in the south Asian megacity.
Instead, Chris Hargreave, a first-time director but seasoned stunt coordinator, chose to shoot in
Ahmedabad and Mumbai in India and Bangkok in Thailand.
Bar a few details—such as the green auto rickshaws which whiz down every road—the fictional
Dhaka bears little resemblance to its real-life counterpart. The gangsters’ slum lair is improbably
spacious, and when the characters’ fighting tears through flats, their occupants are listening to
out-of-date Bollywood music and wearing saris tied in an Indian fashion. Only a few of the
actors playing Bangladeshis, none of whom actually hail from Bangladesh, are able to speak
Bangla convincingly. “It’s like watching a film set in London, about Londoners, but all the
characters sound French,” grimaces one disappointed Dhakaite.

Scripted by Joe and Anthony Russo, the brothers responsible for “Avengers: Infinity War” and
“Avengers: Endgame”, “Extraction” boasts impressive stunts and fight sequences, but it also
recycles tired Hollywood tropes about poor countries. Mr Hemsworth plays an archetypal white
saviour—albeit one with a sad backstory—killing corrupt foreign baddies. A yellow filter has
been used to film the fictional Dhaka, a murky wash often meant to crassly signpost poverty.
There is no hint that the Bangladeshi economy has been growing at a rapid clip for more than a
decade, and that millions have been lifted out of poverty. The portrayal of Bangladesh as an
extension of India is equally crude.

Yet “Extraction” has irked some in Bangladesh not only because of what it gets wrong, but
because of what it gets right. A drug-dealer ordering a colonel from an “elite” security force to
shut the city, as happens at the start of the film, is farcical. If an officer had demanded a cut of
the drug-dealer’s takings and shot him for refusing, though, it would not have been so far-
fetched. “The chain of the command is wrong,” says a Bangladeshi journalist who prefers to
remain anonymous, “but the corruption is too right.” In Bangladesh, where methamphetamine,
trafficked from neighbouring Myanmar, has spawned a multimillion-dollar business, some
members of law enforcement agencies have developed “unholy alliances” with drug-dealers,
says one military official, who is unnerved by the portrayal of corruption in “Extraction”.

The film’s depiction of rampant state violence lands even closer to home. The Rapid Action
Battalion, on which the “elite” force in “Extraction” seems to be modelled, routinely goes on
killing sprees. Human Rights Watch, a monitoring group, published a report in December
claiming that in 2019 “security forces persisted with a long-standing pattern of covering up
unlawful killings by claiming deaths occurred during a gun-fight or in crossfire. Hundreds were
killed in alleged ‘crossfire’ exchanges including during a drive against recreational drugs.”
Almost 500 alleged drug-traffickers and dealers were killed in “crossfire” in 2018 and 300 last
year. Some government insiders refer to these rampages as “police housekeeping”: crooked
officers trying to bump off criminal cronies who may implicate them. Gangsters who are
politically well-connected are normally left unscathed.

Drug-dealers are not the only victims of the state-sponsored violence. Dissenting journalists or
activists have been assaulted or have disappeared. Security forces, charged of late with enforcing
the lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic, have been using their batons and fists to do so,
while government officials, backed by their henchmen, are pocketing rice meant for the poor.

Now more than ever, Bangladesh’s authorities are eager to draw attention away from their
insalubrious exploits. Through its blundering and clichéd depiction of violent corruption,
“Extraction” has unwittingly hit them where it hurts most and, by a quirk of fate, when it matters
most.

“Extraction” is streaming on Netflix now

https://www.economist.com/prospero/2020/05/04/extraction-a-thriller-set-in-dhaka-has-angered-
bangladeshis