Extract is the latest film from Mike Judge (Beavis & Butthead, Office Space, Idiocracy) which is about the owner of an Extract plant who finds himself dealing with a con woman, a troubled marriage, and a lawsuit that could bankrupt him.  The plot is a little rambly, and it’s mostly more a study of the various characters inhabiting the film than a straightforward story.  There are a lot of similarities here to Office Space, at least thematically. The beleaguered workers, this time more blue collar than white, dealing with how to make a living and keep going and the thought of what would you do for a little more happiness.

I can’t say that this is Judge’s finest work.  In fact it’s really not that great, which is completely odd defying when you consider the talent collected here.

Bateman's Joel being miserable

You have some of the finest comedic actors working today all in one place.  There’s Jason Bateman of course as the lead of Joel, Kristen Wiig as his wife, Mila Kunis as the sexy con woman, J. K. Simmons as an employee, David Koechner as the annoying neighbor, and Ben Affleck as a druggie bartender friend of Joel’s.  There’s also a memorable cameo by Gene Simmons.  Every single one of them delivers a great performance and their all on top of their game.  And it does show.  The movie is funny, it’s just not laugh out loud funny (well for the most part at least), in fact I’d definitely consider this a dramedy more than straight comedy.

Mila Kunis as sexy Cindy

The biggest problem I had was that I really felt there was a lot of stuff just all sort of jammed together without time to let it breathe.  At times it just felt like you wanted to stick with one storyline a bit more but you were being yanked to something else.  I also felt that a few of the plot resolutions weren’t too satisfying.  Also Kunis’ storyline which seemed like it was supposed to be the main plot never really flourished and she herself is in the movie far too little.

But the things that worked really worked and the things that fell flat just dragged those things down.  Overall I’d consider this a good movie, just not nearly as good as it could have been, and definitely not on par with Judge’s other films.

I’d say this is worth a rental if you have some time to kill, especially if you happen to like any of the actors listed above as it’s well worth it.

Extract comes out on DVD and for digital download on December 22nd.
You can download it on or get the dvdor Blu-ray on Amazon.com