Extract

We know nothing about Cindy (Mila Kunis) initially. Humoring two guitar store clerks, she persuades them to fish out another instrument and abruptly leaves—in hand, the guitar they left on the counter to be pawned later. Now we know everything we need to know about how this story is going to unfold. The details may vary, but the premise is one oft repeated. The pretty drifter snags a hapless sucker, Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.), in the middle of a worker’s compensation settlement. By now you’d think a manual would be written and posted in every place of employment advising witless suckers of the rogues who materialize when injury money is on the table. Absurd as it seems, it’s a detail that would fit nicely in this comedy of errors. Why not?

Everything in this film is caricature. The Rube Golbergian cascade of events that set into motion the detachment of Step’s testicles is the sort of choreographed mayhem you’d expect only in slapstick comedy, rarely ever in real life. Add that Step’s missing a chromosome or two; plain and simple doesn’t begin to describe how basic his needs are. In fact, not much else is established about him. Joel (Jason Bateman), the owner of Reynolds Extract, is hard-working, fair, yet ambitious, paranoid and selfish—until he grows a social conscience out of nowhere the exact instant the plot requires him to. Suzie (Kirsten Wiig whose comic talents are underused here), is his disconnected, suburbanite wife. Nathan (David Koechner) is an exponential multiple of the sum total of annoying neighbors overstaying their welcome at any given time on this planet. Joel’s confidant, Dean (Ben Affleck), is a drug-obsessed bar owner with some kind of mental disorder who sells him on hiring a gigolo dumber than styrofoam to pose as the pool boy to compromise Suzie’s fidelity. I wouldn’t let up on this last fact if it weren’t for having just met a real-life Dean a few weeks ago here in Dallas. There’s also a cameo by Gene Simmons as Joe Adler, the attorney whose risible negotiating tactics are nothing short of Looney Tunes material.

Joel began with a simple dream of improving the longevity of confectionery extracts to retain flavor through the cooking process. With the exception of perhaps his $80,000 BMW, he has few material wants. He leaves the office gossip to his employees, yet strangely finds himself manufacturing distrust of his wife as an excuse to get closer to Cindy, who threatens to destroy the dream Joel worked so hard to turn around and sell to General Mills. I suspect Mr. Judge has the greatest affinity for Joel. Audiences might have expected him to be the butt of Mr. Judge’s jokes, but the writer/director understands the difference between a working-class entrepreneur and incompetent white-collar bureaucrats. Naturally, Joel gets the wryest lines, “I gotta get a bathroom that doesn’t have a wall adjacent to a TV,” or in observing that women claim to value intelligence and a sense of humor most, “But they always just end up laughing at whatever the good looking stupid guy says.” Granted, what some fans of “Beavis and Butthead” may never have fully grasped is that those vacant buffoons aren’t in on the joke, they are the joke.

For fans of Mr. Judge’s work, which came into popularity with the 1992 short, “Frog Baseball,” Extract will suffice as funny, disposable entertainment. Mr. Bateman’s performance is pitch-perfect, having honed his comic timing on television’s “Arrested Development.” However, the film ultimately comes up short, falling back on drawn-out sight gags, situational humor (e.g. the aforementioned ball-dislodging incident), and comical stereotypes to churn out laughs to keep viewers occupied for 91 minutes. In that regard, it’s not quite as uninhibitedly ridiculous as The Hangover, the tacked-on moral lesson for which no apology is even attempted. Indeed it’s hysterical, yet a far less insightful meditation on the idiosyncrasies of human nature in the workplace than its revered predecessor. Reynolds Extract is the Initech of Mike Judge’s rehash of his cult hit Office Space. Both plots involve an unscrupulous plan to defraud or destroy the workplace, thwarted by serendipity. This film might have succeeded if no greater message about loyalty and trust had been feigned.

Extract • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 • Running Time: 91 Minutes • MPAA Rating: R for language, sexual references and some drug use. • Distributed by Miramax Films