Extract: BD Review
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Page 1 of 3 Buena Vista / 2009 / 92 / Rated R / Street Date: December 22, 2009
Writer-director Mike Judge has carved a unique niche for himself in the comedic world. He’s one of those insightful satirists who seems to fly just under the radar, picking up little pieces of dialogue, mannerisms or personality traits that we all can readily identify with from our own humdrum, daily lives. He’s a minimalist who leaves no stone unturned when it comes to pointing up the folly of human nature — be it our fascination with mindless teenagers (Beavis and Butt-Head), our frustration with work (Office Space), life in middle America (King of the Hill), or the gradual dumbing-down of the nation (Idiocracy). While much of his work lacks the gross-out punchline/slapstick style of fellow comic creators like Judd Apatow or the Farrelly Brothers, his movies are always full of these brief, brilliant moments of pure comedic genius that are frighteningly real and utterly hilarious. Case in point: although considered a flop, the first ten minutes of his last directorial effort Idiocracy, which theorizes how America devolves into a nation of morons because all the intelligent elite are too busy with their lives and careers to procreate while all the white trash idiots keep making babies, is both chilling and funny as hell. The rest of the film sort of veers of the tracks after that, but the setup is about as sharp and perceptive as some of the social satire done by Charlie Chaplin in his heyday. While no one will praise Mike Judge for having a keen eye for broad visual comedy, he certainly makes up for it with a great ear for dialogue and an uncanny knack for nailing how people talk and relate to each other. This skill was first honed with Beavis and Butt-Head and King of the Hill, but it’s sort of come into its own with his live-action directorial efforts as well. He perfectly captured the atmosphere of working within the confines of a cubicle-divided office in Office Space, but also tapped into the restaurant-bar milieu of middle America in the same film with the fictitious Chotchkie’s chain. Where that film was mostly about the workforce rebelling against their oppressive employers, Extract attempts to turn the tables and take a look at a self-made employer who finds himself in a predicament when one of his employees gets injured on the job. While the focus may be different, the satire and attention to detail remain just as precise and credible. It’s almost unfair that Extract has been directly compared to Office Space in all the ads and promos, setting it up as almost a sequel of sorts, because the tone here is decidedly different and a little less self-aware. But I have to admit I was just as impressed with Judge’s satirical wit here and his impeccable grasp of the American working class in both films.
Extract essentially revolves around Joel Reynolds (Jason Bateman), a working stiff who built up his own small business manufacturing food flavoring extracts — stuff like almond and vanilla extract that people use in recipes. Although business is booming and he may soon get a buyout offer from none other than General Foods, Joel is preoccupied with his apparently frigid wife at home and the ongoing incompetence of his factory workers. Just when things are looking up, a freak accident on the bottling line seriously injures Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), taking off one of his testicles. Although Step initially says he doesn’t plan to bring a lawsuit against the company, things change when he meets Cindy (Mila Kunis), a con artist and grifter who recently took a temp job at Reynolds Extract and pretends to have a romantic interest in Step in order to persuade him to hire an attorney. Of course, she’s only in it for the money, and she shamelessly flirts with not only Step, but also Joel in order to make it appear she has nothing to do with Step’s recent change-of-heart. Things get hairy when Step meets with a notorious ambulance-chaser named Joe Adler (KISS’ Gene Simmons in an over-the-top, scene-stealing performance), who intends on doing anything short of bankrupting Reynolds Extract to satisfy his client’s demands.
Meanwhile, Joel attempts to drown his sorrows at a local restaurant-pub where he used to bartend before becoming a self-made man. He’s still best friends with the current bartender there, a pill-popping dope-smoking hippie named Dean (Ben Affleck, in another great supporting role), who fills Joel’s head with an endless array of hare-brained schemes. He first convinces Joel, while under the influence of a tranquilizer, to hire a gigolo to have sex with his wife Suzie (SNL’s Kristen Wiig) as a way to solve their marital problems. As dumb as Dean and his idea may seem, they are like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity when compared to the dolt hired to do the dirty deed: an airhead named Brad (Dustin Milligan) who hopes this new sex-for-hire gig will allow him to quit his landscaping job. Dean also convinces Joel that if Suzie willingly has an affair with Brad, it gives Joel carte blanche to act on Cindy’s flirtations. But things go from bad to worse when the one-time seduction of Suzie becomes a recurring event at Joel’s house. In order to appease him, Dean then pushes Joel into smoking marijuana, which leads to a physical encounter with Cindy’s live-in boyfriend.
If all this romantic affair stuff seems like distracting window dressing, the focus returns to tensions at Reynolds Extract where things aren’t going any smoother, either; Joel’s pressure valve is about to burst when lawyer Joe Adler arrives with his battery of paralegals and demands a hefty settlement for his client. Gene Simmons pretty much runs away with the movie in this brief but unforgettable performance that is really just a louder and more exaggerated version of his own ballooning ego. Likewise, standout character actor David Koechner comes in for a few quick but stinging bits as Joel and Suzie’s relentlessly pesky next-door neighbor Nathan, who insists on having the couple join him and his wife at a fund-raising dinner. Other great supporting turns are delivered courtesy of the always-deadpan J.K. Simmons (no relation to Gene) as Joel’s quietly suffering business partner; the loopy Beth Grant as a natty bottling line worker at Reynolds Extract; and T.J. Miller as Rory, who looks like he could be a live-action variation of either Beavis or Butt-Head, replete with facial piercings and tattoos.
All these people essentially circle Joel’s little corner of the universe and he’s forced to abide them with humble bemusement. Really the only one-dimensional and somewhat forgettable character in this mishmash is Mila Kunis’ Cindy, whose sole purpose seems to be to get Step to sue the company and then to become the one-time catalyst for Joel to hire a gigolo to seduce his wife. Yet another underdeveloped female lead role in a Mike Judge film (see Jennifer Aniston in Office Space). Kunis pretty much disappears in the third act, which is a shame because she has proven with her work on That ‘70s Show and in the recent Forgetting Sarah Marshall that she has great comedic chops. But in the end, she may be just too mainstream and too … well, normal to leave a lasting mark in Mike Judge’s twisted world.
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