Extract
Joel (Jason Bateman), owner of an extract manufacturing company is hoping to settle into an early retirement by selling his company to General Mills. Everything is going smoothly until a terrible accident occurs at the plant and an employee loses a testicle. A manipulating scam artist named Cindy (Mila Kunis) sees a one in a million opportunity to cash in and talks the disfigured employee into filing a lawsuit against the company. At the same time she lands herself a job at the extract company and immediately attracts the attention of the sex deprived owner. Before he knows it poor Joel finds himself in a very sticky situation after taking some very bad advice from his anomalous friend Dean (Ben Affleck.) He hires a gigolo to seduce his wife so he could have a guilt free affair with Cindy, and soon finds himself dealing with a love sick gigolo who has fallen for his wife. Wow, do things get complicated for Joel. He’s continually dealing with dysfunctional employees, an unsatisfied wife, a scam artist of the year, one seriously messed up best friends, and a very odd and annoying neighbor. All while trying to run a company hes trying to sell and not lose all hes ever worked for to a money hungry lawyer (Gene Simmons). When did life get so complicated?!
I was pretty excited to see this movie after hearing it was a Mike Judge film. I absolutely loved Office Space and had high hopes for Extract, but the love just wasn’t there. I’m sad to say, but I found the film a bit disappointing. I was just expecting so much more. I cant say that it was just one thing that threw the movie for me. I must say there were several things that missed the mark with the film. There was potential there, but nothing seems to have been done with it.
For starters it didn’t seem like it was well put together. The subplots didn’t really fit into the grand scheme of things. There was just entirely too much going on to really make the film flow with any ease. There was also a lack of chemistry. There wasn’t that easy flow of dialect between the characters. Everything just seemed like it was forced. Even the comedy seemed a little too forced. It wasn’t for lack of casting. The cast was great, they just weren’t given a real chance to shine. The writing just wasn’t the greatest. The dysfunctional main characters were missing out on some potentially funny scene, but the dialogue just wasn’t there to work with. To put it lightly, it just wasn’t funny. However, there were a few very clever lines thrown in here and there, but just not enough to keep it interesting.
Jason Bateman is a hilarious actor without needing to overdue it, but the subtle humor just wasn’t all there this time to pull off a great comedy. Kristin Wiig, playing the lackluster wife, wasn’t given a great role to shine in. She could have made the film much more interesting if given better dialogue. The same goes for Ben Affleck, kinda, I don’t know if his comedy career can be helped or not really. So, like I said, good casting, bad writing.
If you happen to have a very dry sense of humor and like mellow realism comedy, there is a good chance you may like this film. Its just wasn’t my cup of tea. I did find a few scenes quite entertaining, but for the most part I was just disappointed. I cant say that I would recommend it to anyone thou. It might possibly be worth watching once if you’re a Mike Judge fan and like King of the Hill, but don’t go into it expecting Office Space. It’s not half as memorable or as good.
This film did look and sound good, even though there really wasn’t much to see or listen to. It wasn’t a film set up for sound or visuals. I wouldn’t say its a movie you would really need to own in blu-ray to get the full effects of. I think you would be just as pleased with the DVD version.
Special Features on Blu-ray:
-Deleted Scenes
-Extended Scenes
-Mike Judges Secret Recipe Featurette- The Ingredients To A Classic Mike Judge Film