Extract (2009)

Extract is a live action film written and directed by Mike Judge, most famous for his television shows King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-head. His other live action films include the venerable Office Space and Idiocracy, the former being the basis for yet another workplace folly. Judge even admits that this is a sendup to his original film. While Office Space was about us drones, working for the unconscientiously dickish boss, Extract takes the lead from the boss in question and the problems that comes from that stress. While that in itself is an interesting concept, Extract suffers from the fact that it doesn't stay coherent, and struggles with defining the ill issues of said boss. Instead of real time workplace problems, main character Joel has marital woes, does a bunch of drugs, and can't seem to get rich. Instead of the uncomfortable office atmosphere and awkward workers, Extract relies on caricatures of small town USA to flesh out the cast. The comedy isn't as sharp as the original. The cast was really impressive for the film, including Jason Bateman as the crabby extract plant owner, Kristen Wiig as his repressed wife (who doesn't get enough screen time, in my opinion), and Ben Affleck as his druggy friend/bartender, and Mila Kunis as....I seriously don't know what to categorize her as. She's not a key plot point because she barely affects anything, she's not a romantic lead because she doesn't wrap up the plot, and she isn't contingent on anything so she's not really a lead character. Many of the characters don't really have any point. There isn't really that much of a moral, unless you count not sleeping around, but that keeps getting sidetracked by Joel's infidelities pretty early on in the film, so that's not it. Really, it's a Mike Judge kind of film, with little minded people and hard to swallow humor. It doesn't resonate, but it is another film about hardheaded people, and that is always at least a little entertaining.