John Wick Meets The Raid In Netflix's 2-Part Action Saga

Published Jul 23, 2026, 6:27 PM EDT Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While Netflix’s superb action movie franchise blends The Raid movies with the John Wick franchise, this two-movie series is missing one element common to both of those earlier hits. There is a specter haunting the world of action cinema, and its name is Gun-Fu. While shaky cam aesthetics dominated the action genre throughout the ‘00s, lending an air of immediacy and authenticity to fight scenes and gunfights, the John Wick franchise changed everything when the series began in 2014. While the story of Keanu Reeves’ stoic, placid assassin coming out of retirement to avenge his dead dog was compelling in its own right, the stunning, slick action sequences were what made John Wick immediately stand out. In a style that would later be borrowed by everything from Atomic Blonde to Bullet Train, to the Nobody movie series, to the fight sequences from Everything Everywhere All At Once, to Prime Video’s killer ballerina thriller Pretty Lethal, the John Wick movies used smooth, kinetic Steadicam shots to glide around its immersive action. This approach allowed the audience to get a good view of the action while still providing the bruising brutality of a great martial arts movie. While the John Wick movies brought this style to mainstream attention, 2011’s cult classic Indonesian action movie The Raid was an earlier example of the technique in action. Director Gareth Evans’ bloody, brutal siege thriller framed the titular raid of a drug dealer’s tower block hideout as a ballet of violence, something that Netflix’s Extraction movies borrowed a few years later. Directed by Sam Hargrave from a screenplay by Joe Russo, Extraction tells the story of Chris Hemsworth’s unstoppable black ops mercenary Tyler Rake. An Australian military veteran, Rake is tasked with saving the son of a drug lord from kidnappers, but soon finds himself taking on an endless stream of criminals when he learns he has been double-crossed. Kinetic, brutal, and relentless, Extraction calls to mind Man on Fire in its story of a vengeful one-man army. Of course, watching Hemsworth’s hitman shoot, fight, and chase his way through the story also inevitably reminds viewers of John Wick’s cinematic adventures, while the non-stop pace of the movie’s action calls to mind The Raid series. From the astounding one-shot prison sequence in 2023’s Extraction 2 to the up-close fighting techniques seen in both movies, the Netflix thrillers owe a clear creative debt to The Raid movies. Furthermore, the urban slum settings of both Extraction movies, from their bleak depictions of poverty and criminality to their desaturated color palettes, also find their inspiration in The Raid franchise’s near-dystopian vision of Jakarta. While this might make the Extraction series sound like a carbon copy of The Raid franchise, it is worth noting that the haunting backstory of Rake owes more to the John Wick franchise's plot and lore than anything from Evans’ series. Image via Netflix Since the Extraction movies are such a perfect mix of The Raid series and the John Wick franchise, viewers could be forgiven for assuming these Netflix action thrillers are among the genre’s best releases since 2020. Indeed, critics did praise the action sequences of both Extraction and Extraction 2, despite questioning their derivative plots and overly familiar character beats. However, that’s not what holds the franchise back from true greatness. The Extraction movies prove that certain genres, like action, look better on the big screen, where their slick, stunning set-pieces can be appreciated in all their bruising, explosive glory. While the John Wick movies and The Raid franchise both benefited from big-screen releases, the Extraction movies would arguably have been better off skipping Netflix for theaters. Release Date April 24, 2020 Runtime 117 minutes Director Sam Hargrave