Acerbic Extract a Half-Baked Disappointment
Midwestern businessman Joe Reynolds (Jason Bateman) should have it all. He’s the king of food extracts, his business so successful General Mills is on the verge of a super sweet offer to buy him and his partner Brian (J.K. Simmons) out for enough money the both of them should be able to retire in style.
Ben Affleck and Jason Bateman in Miramax Films' Extract
But Joe isn’t happy. His wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) apparently isn’t interested in him sexually anymore, his best friend Dean (Ben Affleck) convincing him to hire a dimwitted gigolo named Brad (Dustin Milligan) to test her fidelity by posing as a pool cleaner. On top of that Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), one of his best employees who dreams of becoming floor manager, has just lost a testicle in an unfortunate industrial accident, ingénue (and slyly conniving grifter) Cindy (Mila Kunis) seductively convincing him to hire shyster lawyer Joe Adler (Gene Simmons) to take Joe’s company for all their worth.
It is in this environment cult comedy favorite Mike Judge (Idiocracy, “Beavis and Butt-Head”) attempts to weave a sarcastic and surreal fable of love, friendship, business and making all the wrong decisions in his latest cinematic effort Extract. Unfortunately, unlike the slightly similar Office Space the disparate threads never quite connect, and while certain moments have laugh-out-loud vim and vinegar the majority drifts around aimlessly, the sour aftertaste left by the majority of it too much for the film to overcome.
Pity, because the casting is excellent. Bateman underplays beautifully, taking all he learned from his time on “Arrested Development” and putting it to good use transforming Joel into a multifaceted, slightly tragic figure of regret and disappointment. Affleck is also quite excellent, his self-effacing turn as a drugged-out bartender with the world’s worst advice an almost continuous piece of amusement. Wiig is her typically wonderful self, a late poolside scene between her and David Koechner as blissfully funny – and as beautifully out of left field – as anything I’ve seen this year.
The problem is that the movie can never sustain any of its momentum. It lurches along from scene to scene with all the enthusiasm of a turtle waddling along the sand pondering heading out to sea for a refreshing swim. Worse, the numerous plot threads never connect in a memorable way, Judge tying things up with a bland bemusement that’s about as hysterical as watching the proverbial paint dry.
It doesn’t help that Kunis doesn’t seem even moderately interested in making her complicated gold digger a character audiences are going to want to remember. Other than a great initial sequence between Cindy and a couple of goofy music store employees I can’t say she’s got a single scene I can recall with anything approaching clarity. The actress seems bored by both her role and with the movie, and as so much of what happens is directly connected to her that’s one problem the film just can’t even begin to overcome.
Listen, I like Mike Judge. I think he’s an original who has something to say. His movies are unique and personal, their humor coming from a place of intelligence and wit that feels almost as if it were sprung forth from the satirists of old. He has a signature style all his own, and like the writing of Oscar Wilde or the screenplays of Paddy Chayefsky the moment one of his works starts you just know it was his pen it was birthed from.
Be that as it may, as far as Extract is concerned none of that is enough to make the filmmaker’s enterprise matter all that much. While some of the performances hit their marks and certain scenes tickle the funny bone overall the movie fails to connect. It is a comedy that almost feels as if it needed to spend a little more time in the oven cooking, and at the end of the day the only additive I could smell coming off of it was the faint aroma of half-baked disappointment.
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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