All Movie Guide Summary:Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Clifton Collins, and J.K. Simmons star in writer/director Mike Judge's comedy about a flower-extract plant owner contending with an ever-growing avalanche of personal and professional disasters. An employee at the factory has just suffered an unfortunate accident on the assembly line, but little does the put-upon owner realize that things are about to get much worse. As the injured employee threatens to sue and it begins to look like his company will be bought out, the frazzled owner attempts to catch the culprit responsible for stealing wallets from the coat room and begins to suspect that his wife is sleeping with the gigolo he hired to seduce her.
I finally caught up with Judge's latest. This was a "most-anticipated movie" for me last year, though interest slid once reviews were less-than-overwhelming. Though not as consistently funny as "Office Space" and "Idiocracy", "Extract" does ride on that Judge patented low-key charm that is extremely rare in movies and television.
That charm and the inter-personal relationship comedy is what worked for me. All the stuff involving the wife, the gigolo, Ben Affleck, the workplace, was funny, interesting, and somewhat well played (REALLY well played by Affleck, and Dustin Milligan's dumb gigolo is classic Judge); though all the stuff involving Kunis, lawsuits, etc. just seemed like "plot" that needed to be there. I think that even Judge acknowledges this as being somewhat clunky and obvious, by casting himself as a factory employee who has to dispense exposition, at one point in the story, in order to cause some dramatic conflict.
But that plot clunkiness doesn't take away from the shambling low-key charm that this comedy has. Hollywood isn't making these type of movies that often anymore. It really reminded me of some comedy I'd catch on in the afternoon on HBO when I came home from middle school. It's mainly about characters, not a high concept; and most of the humor is derived by these characters and their traits (Judge mastered this with "King Of The Hill"). While not blown away by this film, I'm looking forward to seeing this come up on cable, to see how it holds up and/or rises in esteem. Judge's films always seem to play better, the more often you see them.
I really hope that Judge continues in this vein, and is allowed by Hollywood to continue making his type of comedies. His movies are notorious for not doing any kind of box office (I don't think "Extract" was any different: $10 million domestic), but I really think he's got another stunner or two in him.
