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QUICK TAKE:
Comedy: An extract plant owner finds his professional and personal life progressively unraveling due to bad choices that he and others make.
PLOT:
Joel Reynolds (JASON BATEMAN) is the founder and owner of Reynolds Extracts, a small manufacturer of concentrated food flavorings. While he and his partner, Brian (J.K. SIMMONS), have to deal with various personnel issues -- such as line worker Mary (BETH GRANT) thinking new employee Hector (JAVIER GUTIERREZ) isn't carrying his weight -- for the most part, the company works quite well and is in the sights of a larger company that wants to purchase it.
That, of course, would allow Joel to retire and spend more time with his wife, Suzie (KRISTEN WIG), which is important to him since their lovemaking has completely stopped. While there are obviously various marital issues at play, some of that also stems from their neighbor, Nathan (DAVID KOECHNER), who's always wasting their time chatting about trivial matters.
But Joel's life begins to crumble when Mary momentarily refuses to work, thus leading to a chain reaction on the plant floor involving forklift driver Rory (T.J. MILLER) and fellow employee Step (CLIFTON COLLINS JR.) who ends up injured in the process. That not only eventually leads to ambulance chaser lawyer Joe Adler (GENE SIMMONS) showing up smelling a lawsuit, but also attractive small-time thief Cindy (MILA KUNIS).
Posing as a new temp, her goal is to get in bed with Step -- not literally since his injury was of the testicle variety -- but she ends up drawing the attention of Joel. His bartender friend, Dean (BEN AFFLECK), eventually convinces Joel that if Suzie cheated on him, it would be okay for him to cheat on her. Accordingly, and while under the influence, Joel agrees to have dimwitted gigolo Brad (DUSTIN MILLIGAN) pose as their new pool boy and see if she'll take the seduction bait.
From that point on, and as everyone ends up making bad choices, Joel's professional and personal life progressively unravels.
OUR TAKE: 5 out of 10
Life is full of choices, both good and bad, and people of every pedigree make them day in and day out, but it sometimes seems that the bad ones end up with more memorable impact. Granted, some (I'm gonna beat that train across those tracks) are worse than others (wearing plaid and stripes in the same outfit), but they're clearly a common denominator of the genus homo sapiens.
Those bad ones also feature quite prominently in "Extract," the latest comedy from Mike Judge. If that name doesn't automatically ring a bell, those of his TV shows ("Beavis and Butt-Head," "King of the Hill") and movies ("Beavis and Butt-Head Do America," "Office Space") might just do the trick. Like the latter (which has grown on me and become a cult favorite of sorts among others who pretty much gave it a pass when it was in theaters back in 1999), this one takes place in and revolves around the workspace.
While the related setting may have changed (cubicles to assembly lines), it's pretty much the same sort of flick -- focusing on the annoyances of employment -- but this time places more emphasis on the management than the employee. That role is embodied by Jason Bateman who plays the owner of a company and plant that makes food flavoring.
Despite the day to day issues, things are going well and it appears a larger corporate entity is about to swallow up his endeavor and make him a rich man. Yet, a series of bad choices end up undermining his work and personal life. When a brief work stoppage results in a chain reaction that injures an employee (Clifton Collins Jr.), several financial vultures (Mila Kunis as the sexy one, and, of all people, Gene Simmons as the not exactly alluring one) swoop in smelling the allure of loads of green.
The protagonist's wounds, however, are also self-inflicted. Not happy that his wife (Kristen Wiig) is withholding sex, Joel ops to follow the advice of his bartender friend (a bearded Ben Affleck) to hire a dimwitted gigolo (Dustin Milligan) to seduce said wife. That's all so that he can have a supposedly guilt-free fling with a comely temp at work who, you guessed it, just so happens to be one of those vultures (and no, we're not talking about the tongue waving rocker of KISS).
Thus, the plot begins filling with more and more bad decisions and choices. While they're tragic in nature, this is a comedy by design. So, not only are we not supposed to feel sorry for them (or David Koechner as the constantly annoying neighbor type who can't take a hint that he's just that), but we're also directed to laugh at their misfortune.
While viewer reaction will obviously vary, I found the material more amusing than outright funny, let alone hilarious (although there are occasional smatterings of laugh aloud moments). Bateman certainly makes it all go down fairly easy, probably because he's the only character who realizes the error of his ways, especially when having to deal with the repercussions of said acts.
The rest of the performances are okay, but the characters are neither ruthless nor funny enough to make them stand out (Koechner being the possible exception, although his running gag bit starts to wear thin through repetition). Overall, this is an entertaining enough little diversion, and who knows, perhaps its flavors will become more appetizing with time for yours truly, as occurred with its predecessor a decade earlier. On first taste, however, it isn't tasty or zesty enough to earn a rating of more than 5 out of 10.
Reviewed August 20, 2009 / Posted September 4, 2009
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