Extract
If you follow the example of the unfortunate lead character in Mike Judge's workplace comedy, and extract then bottle the film's essential ingredients, you would be left with a bland syrup of relationship drama, romance and farce.
If you follow the example of the unfortunate lead character in Mike Judge's workplace comedy, and extract then bottle the film's essential ingredients, you would be left with a bland syrup of relationship drama, romance and farce.
Any dry wit that the writer-director may possess, ably demonstrated in his animated series Beavis And Butt-Head and King Of The Hill, appears to have evaporated before he typed a single word of the script.
Extract doesn't have one laugh out loud interlude.
Indeed, there are very few compelling reasons to even smile at this lackadaisical portrait of blue collar, small town life, which ambles along without any hint of urgency or purpose.
If there is a punchline here amidst all the double-crossing, pill-popping and dreary self-analysis, Judge has concealed it very well.
Joel Reynold (Jason Bateman) owns a bottling plant for the patented brand of culinary extracts that bears his name.
His marriage to wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig) is in the doldrums and sex is a lingering thought after 8pm when she dons her symbolic, grey tracksuit bottoms.
'We're turning into one of those brother sister couples,' Joel laments to best pal Dean (Ben Affleck), a bartender with a sideline in under the counter prescription medication.
To add to Joel's woes, his raging libido has been inflamed by sexy, new employee, Cindy (Mila Kunis).
So Dean suggests a radical course of action: hire a dim-witted gigolo called Brad (Dustin Milligan) to seduce Suzie, then Joel can sleep with Cindy.
Little does Joel realise that Cindy is a small-time con woman, who has come to town to woo one of the factory employees, Step (Clifton Collins Jr), and get her painted claws into the sizable insurance payout he is due for an accident on the shop floor.
She persuades Step to hire lawyer Joe Adler (Gene Simmons), who advertises on TV and park benches, and sue Joel for every nickel and dime he can get.
Extract is extremely laboured, traipsing repeatedly over familiar ground to pad out the linear narrative.
Bateman plays his harangued everyman with a permanent air of exasperation, which we can certainly relate to.
It's a largely reactive role, sighing heavily as outrageous misfortune sends another arrow his way and dullard Brad confesses, 'I know she's your wife and stuff, but you should know, we're in love.' Good for them.
Dialogue is flat and every time we expect verbal fireworks, like when Suzie discovers Joel hired Brad to pose as the pool cleaner and sleep with her, we are disappointed: 'You paid Brad this whole time...
all 15 times?' Judge cannot resist a happy ending for all of the characters he thinks deserve one, which is everybody except Simmons's over the top lawyer.
Release Date: Friday 23 April 2010
Certificate: 15
Runtime: 92mins
