Movie Nation

Here’s a “Last Picture Show” era story of growing up in the rural West, the crippling burdens of small town life and that one new friend who can help you lift your downcast eyes “To the Stars.”

Sounds sensitive, maybe a little dated, with a hint of Big Subject to be addressed in it? On the nose. Which is a failing of this still-touching feature from the director of “Land Ho!”

The “first impressions can be deceiving” theme is laid out in the first scene. Shy teen Iris Deerborne (Kara Hayward of “Manchester by the Sea”) gets fussed over by her Mom (Jordana Spiro) and Mom’s friend, fretting over a prom dress they’ve been working on.

Gruff farmer Dad (Shea Whigham) cuts them off and sends her on her way to school.

Grumpy Dad, it quickly turns out, is the reasonable one, just trying to “give her a break.” Mom is a big reason Iris is scared of her own shadow.

The harassment she’s subjected to by pick-em-truck classmates walking to school confirms the crippling pigeon-hole Iris has been shoved into. The boys taunt her with “Stinky Drawers,” and are on the cusp of crossing over to assault when, behold, an avenging angel rides to her rescue.

Hurled rocks and expletives are how we, Iris and the punks meet Maggie (Liana Liberato, “The Best of Me,””If I Stay”). She’s a city girl, she explains.

“I’ve got a mouth like a gutter,” she apologizes. Iris practically sprints away from her.

If these two are going to be friends, Maggie, who lives close by, is going to have to be persistent. Showing up at the pond where Iris takes midnight swims, for instance. Iris is slow to let down her guard.

The mean girls clique at school, led by Clarissa (Madisen Beatty) are all set to take City Girl into their ranks, if only she’d learn Iris is an “Untouchable.” Clarissa is an unfiltered bitch, hitting Iris right where it hurts — her ugly nickname, her booze-crippled home life.

Iris can’t bear to look the handsome hired hand (Lucas Jade Zumann) in the eye, out of fear, fear that her lush of a mother reinforces at every turn. Iris has a secret shame. Mom picks at it, and puts down the attentions from the new girl and her new mother in town.

“She gets her clothes from DEE-orr!” She’s going to tire of Iris and toss her aside. Mom expects, NEEDS this to happen.

And Maggie may talk a big game about her “Life Magazine photographer” Dad (Tony Hale) and model-gorgeous Mom (Malin Akerman) and how “they wanted me to be a model.” But for all their efforts to say grace before dinner, to fit in, Mom’s quick agreement to join the ladies at Hazel’s (Adelaide Clemens) in-home beauty shop at church, something dark is hinted at there as well.

“I left my JOB for you,” Dad hisses at every unaccounted for minute in Maggie’s day. Maggie has a secret shame, too.

We see the two of them bludgeoned by misunderstanding parents and cruel classmates, all of them hellbent on smothering this relationship in the crib. But Iris needs an outsider’s take on her situation to start to understand it.

Maggie just needs a friend who’ll stick by her, even after they fight.

Shannon Bradley-Colleary’s screenplay feels quaint, as if it’s broaching the subject of same-sex attraction in the era it is set — 1960 Oklahoma. But the extreme reactions to this sort of unspoken “deviance” make the shock of how quickly attitudes changed, half a century after “Magnificent Seven” was showing at the local cinema, feel fresh.

Too many scenes feel over-familiar, although the cliched “beauty makeover” by the new friend is punctuated by a surprise twist.

Dated touches aside, the two leads are so immersed in their roles that they make us buy in, too. Liberato is the more experienced, and she makes the emerging “assertive woman ahead of her time” stereotype ring true, and Hayward’s depiction of Iris’s crippling shyness and resignation to her fate touching.

The supporting players build on that reality, with Spiro devouring the tipsy, narcissistic villainy of Francine and Whigham beautifully conveying the stern but kind father and husband trying to counter her cruelty, even though nothing in his upbringing or the expectations of what it means to be a man at the time have prepared him to do that.

And as well-worn as depictions of America’s rural-urban divide are, Martha Stephens’ film is a timely reminder that social change and progress comes from cities. It’s the violent resistance to that change that emerges from the “heartland.”

“To the Stars” may be a mixed bag of over-familiar obstacles and dated themes. But this period-perfect piece and a solid cast take us back to an uglier time, just as we were about to forget it.

MPAA Rating: unrated, violence, teen drinking, profanity

Cast: Kara Hayward, Liana Liberato, Jordana Spiro, Malin Akerman, Tony Hale,  Adelaide Clemens and Shea Whigham

Credits: Directed by Martha Stephens, script by Shannon Bradley-Colleary. A Samuel Goldwyn release.

Running time: 1:49

“The Willoughbys” is a kids’ cartoon conceived in that no-kids-land, the border country between “Yellow Submarine” and, oh, “Hotel Transylvania 3.”

There’s whimsy and originality in the design and animation, and a trip to rehab in the screenplay.

No, having Ricky Gervais as the almost-snarky narrator-cat, give us an opening speech about what sort of story it WASN’T going to be, all sweet and cuddly and kid-pandering, doesn’t atone for that.

It starts promisingly, builds towards something Roald Dahl cutting and cute, and kind of comes to pieces, like crumb cake.

It’s about a family of gingers — self-absorbed upper-class twits, The Willoughbys, who have been history’s leaders, warriors and adventurers. But the water’s run out of the gene pool, and the couple we meet as “Father” (Martin Short) and “Mother” (Jane Krakowski), are happily holed up in a midtown Oceania (neither British, nor American, just…Orwellian) house where they dance and kiss and coo and knit.

Until the kids arrive. Tim (Will Forte) is the first. And he’s read the Riot Act by Dear Old Dad right at the get-go.

“If you need love, I beg of you, find it elsewhere!”

Jane (Alessia Cara) and the twins, both named Barnaby (Seán Cullen) follow. Same deal. The parents are totally self-involved, and into each other — not the kiddies.

There’s a bold statement for a PG-rated cartoon. Married happiness ends when the children show up.

The couple “eat TODAY’S food. You rat YESTERDAY’S food.”

No wonder Tim is drawn rail-thin. Jane is in the habit of singing what her present state of mind and situation are, which just earns rebukes from Mother.

Yes kids, some people NEVER should have children.

The script somewhat pointlessly drops a baby, Baby Ruth, on their doorstep. They “re-orphan” her at a candy factory run by Commander Melanoff (Terry Crews).

Then Tim and Jane hatch a scheme to save them all. They’ll invent a travel agency that can book their neglectful parents on a long trip. “What if we orphaned ourselves.”

Only the parents hire a rotund, rambunctious Nanny (Maya Rudolph) to “care” for them, something they’ve never done. Well, aside from the red wigs Mother has knitted for the quartet.

Nanny sings — “ALL nannies sing!” — cooks and carries on, but Tim isn’t having this usurping of his rule of the “family.” That leads to the Sorrow and the Pity. Or its animated equivalent.

It’s a chatty movie with a few complex ideas and a lot of bigger words than your average child animation fan would know. With Mr. Gervais on board, is this some sort of satire aimed more at adults?

If it is, here are the two places I laughed. The kids head to the candy factory “at the end of the rainbow” (Stay off drugs, screenwriters). Tim notes “This is the BAD part of town.”

A homeless guy starts picking out the music to “Dueling Banjos.”

Another grown up gag? The parents catch a little public radio, at some point, and the distinct feminine affectations of Ira Glass (“This American Life”) pop up — navel-gazing radio for the hopelessly self-involved.

I almost laughed at the giddily greedy realtor the parents hire — mid-trip — to sell their house (kids NOT included) for them.

So while there’s wit in the design, and the animation is up to snuff, this is no “Klaus,” no obvious sign that Netflix is ready to give Pixar, Dreamworks, Sony Animation or Blue Sky a run for their money. Hiring directors with “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2)” and “Space Chimps” experience did not help.

Why they didn’t just write a check to Laika (“Coraline,” “Paranorman”) or another check to Aardman (“Sean the Sheep”) escapes me.

MPAA Rating: PG for rude humor and some thematic elements

Cast: The voices of Will Forte, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short, Alessia Cara, Terry Crews and Jane Krakowski

Credits: Directed by Kris Pearn, Cory Evans and Rob Lodermeier , script by Kris Pearn and Mark Stanleigh. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:32

How much time do we allow for a vintage “wuxia” picture for “the good stuff” to begin?

Asking for a friend.

Sure, you cut some slack for the early films in the genre of martial arts period pieces that reached their pinnacle with “Crouching Tiger,” “House of Flying Daggers” and “Hero.” But “Dragon Inn” and “Come Drink With Me” set the stage for the flying, fist-flinging, sword-slinging epics to follow, and inspired them by being fun and furious.

“The Fate of Lee Khan” (1973) was a late arrival of those early years. And there are perfectly obvious reasons its not listed among the greats, the early greats of this literary-turned-film phenomenon.

It’s stagey, set on basically one set, with a few exteriors at the beginning and for the Big Brawl at the End.

It’s talky, and the banter isn’t particularly witty — heavy on exposition. It’s about a 13th century conflict, a tyrannical leader — Lee Khan (Feng Tien) — his visit to the remote Spring Inn (because “Dragon Inn” was taken) and efforts to steal a map of war plans.

The little bursts of action generally spin around the owner, Wan Jen-mi (Li Hua Li) and her beautiful, martial arts-and-pickpocketing skilled and somewhat short-tempered wait staff.

And that’s just not enough to put this over.

I’m not that familiar with the films of King Hu, but a quick Google reveals he was never known for fight choreography. Fine. But if the story, the performances, the gags and the righteous beat-downs are supposed to sell this, they don’t.

The trash talk and threats are of the “You must be tired of living!” (subtitles) variety.

The only laughs come from the singing, rhyming jester (Ying-Chieh Han) who works the room for tips, gets on most people’s nerves, and then gets himself involved in the plot that involves Wan Jen mi and the mysterious Wang Cheng (Ying Bai).

It’s pretty enough to look at, in a sort of colorfully-underlit way. The fights better staged than photographed and edited. And the tedium overwhelms whatever excitement we might have hoped for, considering the genre, the title and the fact that somebody (Film Movement) thought this was a “forgotten gem” that deserved reconsideration.

Not really. Judging from this, “The Fate of Lee Khan” was to die of boredom waiting for the “fun parts” to begin.

MPAA Rating: unrated, some bloody violence

Cast: Li Hua Li, Feng Tien, Ying Bai, Angela Mao, Chin Hu, Feng Hsu and Ying-Chieh Han

Credits: Directed by King Hu, script by King Hu and Chung Wang.  A Film Movement Plus release.

Running time: 1:45

Hollywood has so pounded the “serial killer thriller” to death that you kind of wish they’d close the door on the subject.

But here’s a Polish version that’s as sharp as a cold slap in the face, as grisly as anything Hannibal Lecter dreamed up, and then some.

“The Plagues of Breslau” is social satire and history, police procedural and a grim, judgemental police indictment. It teaches and teases and is so tight that it’s rolling the credits before you have the chance to process everything that’s been thrown at you.

A short history lesson — “Breslau” is the old Germanic name for Wroclaw, a celebrated, historic and by reputation well-educated city in Silesia, on the Western edge of Poland. That’s where our story is set.

Our detective, Helena Rus (Malgorzata Kozuchowska), is sitting in her car, weeping, when we meet her, and not over that haircut. She’s recently suffered a loss.

Hurling her into a murder case doesn’t lessen her vulnerability. But pesky freelance TV reporters (Maria Dejmek) and annoying crime-scene bystanders get on her nerves and bring out the threats.

“In ten seconds, everyone here gets fingerprinted and processed as a possible suspect,” she growls, in Polish with English subtitles. “In our lovely country, that takes four hours. Ten, nine, eight.”

She’s just as touchy with her brutish, selfie-obsessed lout of a partner, whose radio call name is “Bronson” (Tomasz Oswiecinski).

“Don’t make me f—–g repeat myself!”

The first body is found stitched into a rare cowhide and stuffed in a stall as a street market. A tip — if bloodied corpses and explicit autopsies make you squeamish, move along.

The word “degenerate” has been branded on the victim’s abdomen.

The next victim, creatively delivered in pieces the very next day, has “plunderer” branded on his skin.

As the words are written in Polish, “that rules out foreigners,” the lady coroner quips. “A very methodical whack job,” is her cursory verdict.

The case is about to become a sensation, so a third expert is brought in, a profiler from the central office. All the experts in this corner of Poland are women, a sly bit of social commentary slipped into the slaughter.

A bluff and burly woman, she (Daria Widawska) sizes up crime scenes in a flash, immediately recites the Polish history that this killer seems to be repeating (a 1741 “cleansing” of the city’s wrongdoers by Frederick the Great) and even second-guesses the doctors who pronounce Bronson “brain dead” after getting caught up in an epic stunt pulled off by the killer.

One “victim” per day, each with some mortal personal or social sin attached to their resume, burned onto their flesh. Can the cops reason out a way to get ahead of the killer and stop the spree?

Satire enters the picture through casting, visuals and the nature of the crimes. The police, aside from Det. Rus and our profiler, are doltish and slow off the mark.

“They’ll fire us all for this, right?” an assistant to the chief mutters, to the general agreement of all who surround him, including his boss.

Crime scenes are sloppy, autopsies are carried out under strips of fly paper in a morgue you can practically smell.

One of the victims was the monstrous boss of a slaughterhouse, where he refused to run the AC “because it cost money,”  and locked the bathrooms, forcing employees to wear diapers on their cruel 12 hour shifts.

The sense of corruption, of criminals unpunished, a culture that’s never shed the Soviet domination that so scarred it for much of the last century (one crime takes place during a performance of the Russian opera, “The Fiery Angel”).

Flies surround the cynical, hair-flipping TV reporter, who berates her cameraman for being “no man” for flinching every time someone in authority threatens him.

The justice system doles out “political immunity” to well-connected criminals, the police “don’t help people,” and bully the alleged watchdogs — the press. The press? They’re chasing blood-stained ratings.

And this avenger has come among them to “cleanse” the city anew.

One set-piece, involving explosions and racehorses loosed in the city, is flat-out dazzling. Let’s hope the “Hollywood remake” does it as well.

The performances are more engrossing than affecting, with Kozuchowska never letting Helena show a scintilla of empathy. And some of the plot twists may give you whiplash.

But “The Plagues of Breslau” throws a lot of fresh ideas at the genre and blood on the screen, making for one of the most surprising pictures to wear the label “serial killer thriller” in years.

MPAA Rating: TV-MA, graphic, gruesome violence

Cast:Malgorzata Kozuchowska, Daria Widawska, Tomasz Oswiecinski , Maria Dejmek

Credits: Directed by Patryk Vega, script by Sylwia Koperska-Mrozinska and Patryk Vega.  A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:33

Allery Parkes has reached the “routines” stage of life.

He gets up at the same time, puts on his work shirt, has his breakfast, loads the same canned-meat sandwich into his lunchbox and methodically, slowly, walks to work.

Marriage? He and Iola have their own routines, a post-affection relationship of few words, one that’s endured for decades.

The factory’s old. And so is the man running the press that stamps out small plastic spacers that fit in plastic drawers in plastic storage cabinets.

And then the young guy “from corporate” shows up with everybody’s “last check.” What’s a “Working Man” to do?

Writer-director Robert Jury’s made an intimate portrait of rust belt decline, a movie steeped in a funereal gloom, but built on a stoic, compelling lead performance by veteran character actor Peter Gerety, most recently a regular on “Ray Donovan” and “Sneak Pete” on TV.

It’s a too-familiar story told in an over-familiar way. What does life hold for someone after the central organizing principle of that life ends? For a lot of working men, that’s the job, not family.

“You need to work to feel like you’re worth something” isn’t the most original take on this. But it’s practically the longest sentence Allery utters in “Working Man.”

Talia Shire of the “Rocky” movies plays the concerned wife who wonders why Allery maintains his routine the day after New Liberty plastics shuts down. It just takes her a couple of days of watching him silently dress, prep lunch and trudge out the door before she asks “Is everything all right?”

Being an old-timer, he’s got a secret way of slipping back into the plant. But Allery can’t do his old job. The power’s off. So he starts cleaning.

This boarded-up corner of Chicagoland is filled with neighbors who once were colleagues. Not that Allery ever associated with them. He ate his lunches alone, didn’t show up for the “last check” line, didn’t say anything to the boss who came up at the end of the day (everybody else had left the job) to hand him that check.

But those co-workers gossip and wonder “What the hell is he doing?” every morning as Allery passes. Eventually one, “the new guy,” Walter (Billy Brown of “How to Get away with Murder”), follows him and figures it out.

And Walter’s paid attention. He knows how the place ran. He can get the power back on.

That clinging to one’s guiding purpose story isn’t really what drives “Working Man.” There are layers to peel away to show Allery as he is. Iola knows, but can’t bring herself to speak. Her arranging a surprise visit from Pastor Mark doesn’t help.

And even Walter can’t get much out of the man he starts spending his days with, but has to pick up pieces of his puzzle from the other folks who barely know Allery.

It’s an intimate, well-acted story told in a “film festival” movie, the sort of small-stakes/small-scale production that collects awards from audiences comprised of film buffs.

Don’t come to “Working Man” for its surprises. This theme has been explored in classic films since the silent era (Murnau’s “The Last Laugh”), films from many countries and cultures.

But its message is well-worth repeating in a time of economic upheaval. And the example it sets for indie filmmakers — tell a story that’s about something important, create compelling characters and flesh out that cast with under-used character players who never land leads — make “Working Man” a reminder of what dramatic independent cinema was always supposed to be, and could be again.

MPAA Rating: unrated

Cast: Peter Gerety, Billy Brown, Talia Shire

Credits: Written and directed by Robert Jury. A Brainstorm Media release.

Running time: 1:49

“Never Ever (À jamais)” is a brief French drama, with lovely settings and beautiful actors. And it finishes with a fine twist.

But I’m not sure I can endorse the dull, internalized grief that comes before that finale. It’s a ghost story, of sorts, based on a Don DeLillo novella, “Body Artist.” And it left me cold.

Rey, played by Mathieu Amalric (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”) is a dialed in French filmmaker whom we meet at a festival showing of his latest. He muse and star, Isabelle (Jeanne Balibar), is by his side.

But he loses her when they duck out after the screening begins. He wanders the arts center and happens upon a beautiful performance artist (Julia Roy, who also wrote the script) in a leotard, playing to a nearly empty house in an upstairs theater.

Rey stumbles across her changing backstage. Or does he? He’s devouring her with his eyes. He stalks her down the hall and out the door as she leaves.

And even though she’s half his age, she’s into that. Next thing we know, they’re riding up to his house in the country on his motorcycle.

It is an affair that begins with few words (in French with English subtitles.

“Do always drive so fast?”

Oui.

“Isn’t it dangerous?”

Oui.

“Live here alone?”

Oui.

Eventually, he gets her name. Rey and Laura are instantly inseparable, so much so that he dodges his muse’s many calls and obsesses on the new woman in his life.

He does that thing Liv Ullman used to joke about as the reason she left Swedish director Ingmar Bergman. Rey, like Bergman, insists on telling his lover his dreams.

Rey interrogates her after every solo outing she takes. Is he suspicious, asking her what she ate, who she ate with, what they talked about? Might Laura be cheating?

No. He’s mining her for material.

But the plans they’re making rattle him. His producer can’t advance him any cash, even though they want to marry. And Isabelle, when she gets the news, eviscerates him with a smile.

“Does she want a child? She is young. She’ll want one…And she’ll leave you one day. Anyone would run away.”

Rey’s ensuing fatal motorcycle accident comes as no shock. Stress and recklessness are deadly on a bike.

Laura stays behind in the house that wasn’t Rey’s, dodging creditors, old friends and everyone. She has a curious way of grieving. She’s taken the noises she’s always heard in the walls as proof of Rey’s “presence.” She dozes off in front of her laptop, which plays and replays the CCTV highway footage of just after the accident, as if she’s looking for a spirit to leave the tunnel where Ree crashed.

She starts seeing Rey, and then talking with him.

I’m not entirely sure of what DeLillo was getting at with this story, but my take-away was the way artists use each other, absorb each other in their work. Laura is subsumed by the more successful Rey, even after death, listening to his tape-dictated script notes, his messages to her — repeating old conversations in his words and in his voice.

Her outward signs of grief mirror the way he expressed his curiosity about her life without him around.

What’d Nora Ephron’s writer-parents teach her?

“Everything is copy.” Life moments, incidents, conversations and clever turns of phrase are all fair game to the creative.

Veteran French director Benoît Jacquot (“Farewell, My Queen”) makes every scene austere, stylish and lifeless. Generations of French filmmakers have filmed every at-home moment, every meal or conversation, in such chilly silence. Drives me nuts.

They’re too chic to ever play music, have a TV on or even leave something simmering on the stove as background noise. Rare is the French film that feels “lived in,” as a result.

Sorry, as much as I love the effortless elan of how every French character, male or female, wears a jacket, scarf or accessories in the movies, too many French films are self-consciously artsy in ways that underline the artifice.

Fans of the book may pull more from “Never Ever,” and the actors are easy on the eyes. But some of us “Never Ever,” or at least rarely, want to see screen stories as bloodless as this.

MPAA Rating: unrated, nudity, sex

Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Julia Roy, Jeanne Balibar.

Credits: Directed by Benoît Jacquot, script by Julia Roy, based on the Don DeLillo novella. A Film Movement Plus (streaming) release.

Running time: 1:26

When the babysitter stumbles upon a crazed woman devouring the kid she’s supposed to be caring for in the opening moments of “The Wretched,” my first thought was “zombies” and second thought was “vampires.”

Silly me. WITCHES. The feminine evil you can ward off with salt, kill with fire, those folks.

Besides, the Pierce brothers, veterans of all sorts of film set jobs before jumping into directing, already made their zombie movie — “Deadheads.”

“The Wretched” is a polished reasonably tight tale of a witch infestation coming to rural, lakeside Michigan, and the teenage boy who screams “Why won’t anybody BELIEVE me?”

The picture’s sheen doesn’t hide the script’s grim inevitability, its deer skulls and witching tree and witch hole in the heart of the woods. But it does tend to distract from the umpteenth tale of the kid who sees what the grownups are up to and struggles to save the littler kids from devouring by the ladies who like brooms.

Not that we see any of those. This isn’t “Wizard of Oz.” It’s “dark,” which passes for sophistication in the genre.

Ben (John-Paul Howard of TV’s “Cheerleader Nightmare”) is the boy who shows up for the summer, not-really-ready to work for his dad (Jamison Jones) at the (Northport, Michigan) marina. He’s got a busted arm.

Still, friendly-sassy Mallory (Piper Curda) is there to guide him through.

And after hours, there’s all the weird and randy goings-on from the summer rentals next door. Tattooed mama Abbie (Zarah Mahler) grew up there, and when she isn’t scaring her little boy, Dillon (Blane Crockarel) in the forest, she’s gutting the deer they hit on the drive home.

“You should have seen at her burning man,” Dillon’s dad (Kevin Bigley) cracks. “Mom’s always been weird.”

And that’s not the half of it. When we hear that clicking growl from the “Predator” movies, when we see flowers wither in her presence and see that reassamble-the-bones back and neck-crack to stand upright (a horror movie staple) we know something’s moved in on Abbie.

Ben finds himself fretting for Dillon and freaking out on “witchlore” websites as he pieces together what he thinks is happening with the neighbors. But he’s up against it.

The “witch” takes over host bodies. The “witch” bends minds in that “These are not the droids we’re looking for” way, makes people forget what they’ve seen, or even that they have children.

Because the witch, as any Hansel and/or Gretel could tell you, craves children.

The story’s few distractions include bullying by the rich kids, teen drinking and panting for Ms. Wrong when Ms. Right, who knows “port” from “starboard” and other boatways, is right in front of you.

The acting’s not bad, the production values solid. But “The Wretched” is never more than a horror thriller you don’t mind as opposed to one worth tracking down. Except for one thing.

It streams May 1. But it also heads to select American drive-in theaters, the safest way to “go out and see a movie” these days. This beast, with its monsters and witchcraft and dating dos and don’ts, was made for the drive-in.

MPAA Rating: unrated, gory violence, teen drinking, nudity, profanity

Cast: John-Paul Howard, Piper Curda, Jamison Jones, Zarah Mahler and Blane Crockarell.

Credits: Written, directed and produced by Brett Pierce, Drew T. Pierce, The Pierce Brothers. An IFC Midnight release.

Running time: 1:36

Stuntman turned director Sam Hargrave keeps the camera close to the action in “Extraction,” tight and right in the middle of the brawls and sprawl of Dhaka, Bangladesh and right in the face of his hero, Chris Hemsworth.

That ups the intensity of the fights, shows Hemsworth in his best man-in-action and feeds the crowded, claustrophobic feeling that fighting your way out of a part of the world known for dystopian over-crowding.

The script? Well, it’s from one of The Russo Brothers, who have become the Koch Brothers of action cinema — hostile takeover artists who get rich at our expense and make everything they touch worse. Middling Marvel installments shoved down our throats, generic story beats, and the dialogue in their movies? Wit never figures into them.

“Extraction” is a “Proof of Life” thriller about a soldier-turned-mercenary/”rescue-for-hire” Aussie named Tyler Rake.

“Sounds like a garden tool.” It is. And one figures in one of the fights. Shockingly.

An Indian drug lord’s kid (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) is nabbed from his private school/empty mansion life by a Bangladeshi drug lord. What’s that mean to Team Tyler.

“We’ve landed ‘the whale,'” his logistics organizer and manager (Golshifteh Farahani) says. They’ll go in, find the kid, shoot the people who have the kid, return the kid to his father’s aide (Randeep Hooda) and Big Bucks will turn up in their bank account.

They’ve got transport and drones, drivers and boat handlers, a sniper and Thor. What could go wrong?

Things do. When the bad guy (Priyanshu Painyuli) owns the police in Dhaka, and hires “the Goonies from Hell” (child soldiers) as backup, when the just-as-bad-guy’s minions don’t want to pay, getting out of a teeming city surrounded by rivers turns nigh on impossible.

We know this because the opening scene is Rake, bloodied and beaten up, fighting his way across a jam-packed bridge.

The cliches pile up like Bangladeshi bodies as we learn Tyler’s got a sad past.

“You’re hoping if you spin the chamber enough times, you’re gonna catch a bullet!”

The various bad guys will the soundtrack with Hindi and Bengali threats.

“You think I can’t hurt you from here (in prison)?”

Hiring child soldiers is a simple process. Show “the boss” your blood lust.

“I like this one. Find him a gun. Put his fingers to work.”

“Extraction” runs into the same problems any movie that’s on-the-run/fighting-your-way-out faces. It’s wearing, characters get shortchanged and the temptation to take absurd shortcuts in logic just to get us from point A to B is irresistible.

But Hooda and Hemsworth give fair value as physically matched-up foes. Hemsworth, who is at his very best in lighter fare, more than holds his own as his character is brooding as he punches, shoots, stabs, runs over — and yes, garden rakes — every army grunt, mob mug or tween thug that gets in his way.

It’s just not enough, and bringing in David Harbour as an old comrade in arms doesn’t help.

MPAA Rating: R for strong bloody violence throughout, language and brief drug use)

Cast: Chris Hemsworth,  Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Golshifteh Farahani and David Harbour.

Credits: Directed by Sam Hargrave, script by Joe Russo, based on the graphic novel “Cuidad.” A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:57 (10 minutes of credits)