REVIEW: ‘Exterritorial’ Is A Netflix Action Movie Worth Watching

The Netflix Original Film slate is fairly diverse when it comes to action. When you add in the streamer’s attention to the genre for television, well, this is where the mid-budget take on action has started to live. It’s particularly strong with Netflix’s international slate of films, with Exterritorial adding to that tradition.

Written and directed by Christian Zübert, Exterritorial is an action thriller fueled by a mother’s love. While we often see a father or a father-like figure go on a hunt to find their missing daughter, this Netflix Original Film shows a mother in a very similar situation. Exterritorial focuses on Sara Wulf (Jeanne Goursaud). An ex-special forces soldier for the German military, Sara is trying to start a new life with her son Josh.

While she suffers from PTSD episodes from her time in combat in Afghanistan, she wouldn’t take any of her military time back because that’s where she met her husband. Only now, instead of raising their son together, Sara is a single mother after her husband’s untimely passing.

Ready to turn the page in her life, she heads to the United States consulate in Frankfurt, answering a call for more officers to immigrate to the U.S. on H1B Visas. This is her chance to build something new and maybe help recover from her trauma as a soldier.

Netflix Original Film, Exterritorial, uses its mostly one-location gimmick as much as it can.

Only, the consulate trip becomes far more than she expected when her young son disappears without a trace. Frantic, she asks those around her to help her find him. He talked to multiple people, he made a scene in the waiting room, and someone has to know where he is. Only there seems to be no trace of the young boy anywhere, and the people working in the consulate can’t remember ever seeing Sara with a child.

Sara tries her best to contact the German authorities, and this is where Exterritorial leans into its gimmick to create a unique action situation. Sara is helpless because a consulate is outside the jurisdiction of German authorities. As the Americans refuse to acknowledge her concerns, she has no choice but to fight her way through the US consulate and do everything she can to avoid being removed from the premises. If she is, she will lose her son forever.

As much as action films often highlight the need to escape, Sara’s motivations push her to stay locked down in the building for as long as possible. Instead of running from bad guys to escape danger, she must run right into it. And for the most part, Sara isn’t scared.

As the Americans do their best to gaslight her into believing that her son is a figment invented by her PTSD, Sara has to physically overpower the American military in the consulate and push back mentally against everyone trying to cripple her dedication as a mother.

Motherhood makes our heroine Sara fiercer than her military opponents. 

A mostly single-location film, Exterritorial does its best to turn the consulate into a labyrinth, with depth to each layer that matches Sara’s increasing danger and the dark conspiracy she has unwittingly found herself in. At times, the consulate feels so much larger than it possibly could be. However, it’s not hard to envision the United States running a massive consulate with sub-levels to use as black-site interrogation areas or bunkers to ride out a war.

In fact, Exterritorial banks on the audience understanding the US’s multiple lies and aggressive tactics to secure self-interests (especially during the “war on terror”) to get audiences to buy into the film’s central premise. And it succeeds. Every bit of messed-up power choice is easily bought into, thanks to America’s reputation abroad and also because of how hard Christian Zübert has leaned into this abduction action subgenre.

Exterritorial excels not because of its rough pacing or slightly hole-filled plot, but because of Jeanne Goursaud’s Sara and Dougray Scott‘s Erik Kynch. The two are in an aggressive dance, with everyone around them being pulled in. Sara knows Kynch’s secrets, and she’s the only person alive who does.

Jeanne Goursaud gives every action scene her all in Exterritorial.

From the outset of the film, we know that Kynch is involved. His helpful attitude is carried by an undercurrent of menace that Scott brings to the role. Simultaneously, Goursaud’s ability to play a hardened veteran skilled in combat and a mother deeply terrified that she’s losing her mind and son makes for something mostly compelling.

Jeanne Goursaud has all the action, grit, and ability to perform physical stunts, making solid moments to keep you plugged into the film. Exterritorial also showcases Sara’s special forces skills, not by having her beat every single opponent, but by showcasing how she makes the most of every fight. She may not always be able to overpower her opponent due ot their size, but she can fight as smartly as possible, using her environment and surprise to her advantage.

That element also captures the importance of the action that Exterritorial is channeling. Even her costuming harkens back to Die Hard, while her drive to get her son back at all costs pushes the action needle toward the early aughts. Either way, this actioner wants to be fueled by the audience’s nostalgia, which works.

Ultimately, though, Exterritorial understands how to use its gimmick in the narrative situation and drives this home with Jeanne Goursaud’s performance and action sequences. Much of this German action film feels like an embodiment of the ’90s action films that prioritized thorny situations over world-ending ones. Still, even with a few faults, Exterritorial scratches that mid-budget action itch that is finally starting to come into focus in the action landscape again.

Exterritorial is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.