Review: Extract

Extract, King of the Hill creator Mike Judge's fourth film (counting Beavis and Butthead Do America), follows Joel (Jason Bateman), the owner of a flavor extract plant, as he deals with a number of unfortunate situations that arise in his otherwise all-too-boring life. Joel's relationship with his wife, Suzy (Kristen Wiig), has turned into a dull, sexless marriage unless he makes it home before the 8:00 sweatpants deadline. This frustration is made even more apparent when beautiful con-artist Cindy (Mila Kunis) starts working at the plant in an attempt to seduce Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.), an employee in line for a multi-million-dollar settlement after an accident that...well, let's just say every man in the audience will be cringing and crossing their legs in sympathy. Joel decides he wants to have an affair with Cindy, so on the advice of his bartender friend Dean (Ben Affleck) - and under the influence of a horse tranquilizer - he hires Brad (Dustin Milligan), a dumb-as-rocks gigolo, to sleep with Suzy so that he can pursue Cindy guilt-free.

Now, I'm generally a fan of Mike Judge's film work. I consider Office Space a piece of brilliantly clever commentary, and Idiocracy was a unique concept and had some very funny moments. On the other hand, I've never really seen the point to King of the Hill - it always struck me as dull and forgettable, particularly given that it's an animated series (I mean, couldn't he have just cast Jeff Foxworthy and the other Blue Collar Comedy guys for the same effect?). Point being, I went into the theater knowing that Judge's work could be either funny and memorable or just...there. Unfortunately, Extract proves to be more forgettable than clever.

The characters in Extract tend to fall into two categories. First, they are by and large mind-bogglingly annoying, and I don't mean in a good, funny way, a la the waiter with too much flare from Office Space. No, these characters are written in such a self-consciously annoying way that the audience winds up hating them as much as (if not more than) we would if we worked with them in real life. In the second category are characters so under-developed and blatantly archetypal that they could have been played by literally anyone and I would have cared just as much. Ben Affleck's Dean is a carbon copy of the "stoner buddy" and made me feel like Judge saw the Harold and Kumar movies and thought they were funny. J.K. Simmons' Brian is given little more to do than nickname all the factory employees "Dingus." Gene Simmons of KISS fame even makes an appearance as Step's smarmy lawyer Joe Adler, which merely left me wondering, "Why Gene Simmons?" The only exceptions are Kristen Wiig, who is funny, charming, and sorely underused; and David Koechner (the sports guy from Anchorman) as nosy neighbor Nathan, whose character arc is ruined with a total cop-out at the end of the film.

What's most frustrating about Extract is the unrealistic nature of the main plot device. I could buy the three software guys in Office Space concocting a money-laundering scheme to get back at the bureaucracy that stole their twenties, but the decision that causes Joel's central conflict - hiring a gigolo to sleep with his wife, who he seems to genuinely care about despite their lack of a sex life - makes no sense whatsoever and destroyed any empathy I had for the character.

I was surprised at how little I cared for Extract. It typically doesn't take a lot for me to enjoy a movie. I'm a fan of Jason Bateman from his work on "Arrested Development." Mila Kunis sure is nice to look at. But in the end, while there were some funny moments and a couple performances that saved the film from total irrelevance, Extract was a poor effort from Mike Judge that felt like a completely wasted opportunity.

Rating: 2/5