Jason Bateman stars as Joel, the owner and founder of a small company that makes food extracts--not a particularly exciting venture, to be sure, but one that is quite successful and that he has built from the ground up. From a purely economic perspective, Joel has much to be proud of, including a 7-series BMW and a large house in a gated community, but all is not well in his life. For one thing, just getting into his house has become a gauntlet that involves trying (and always failing) to avoid the inane babbling of his annoying and utterly dull neighbor Nathan (David Koechner), who is incapable of picking up on the most obvious of social cues. Once he gets inside, he is faced with a stale and utterly sexless marriage to his work-at-home-wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig), who spends her evenings indulging in sweatpants and Dancing With the Stars rather than carnal pleasures. Thus, Joel spends much of his spare time hanging out at the Marriott sports bar where he once worked, getting generally bad advice from his scruffy, but well-meaning friend Dean (Ben Affleck), whose idea of solving problems generally involves popping Xanax, even if said problem is just a head cold.

It is from Dean (and a pill that may have been a horse tranquilizer) that Joel gets the idea of hiring a gigolo to seduce Suzie so that he can have an affair with Cindy (Mila Kunis), the cute new temp worker who we already known is a practiced con artist and thief (the film opens with a clever sequence in which she uses her looks and fake cluelessness to bilk a music store out of an expensive guitar). Enter Brad (Dustin Milligan), a good-looking but utterly vapid young stud who successfully seduces Suzie, but then keeps on doing the job for free because he thinks he’s in love with her.

Meanwhile, Joel has plenty of problems at work, as well. Just managing the motley assortment of workers in the extract factory would be trouble enough, which includes a fork-lift operator whose mind is more occupied with his various industrial metal bands (T.J. Miller), a non-English-speaking Mexican immigrant (Javier Gutiérrez), and a snooty busybody who is constantly afraid of said immigrant (the always reliable Beth Grant). Joel gets only minimal help from Brian (J.K. Simmons, wonderfully caustic as always), the plant manager who refuses to learn anyone’s names and simply refers to all of them as “dinkus.” Things take a turn for the worse when Step (Clifton Collins, Jr.), who prides himself on being the fastest sorter in the factory and aspires to floor manager as if it were President of the United States, is robbed of a testicle in a freak accident and becomes the next scam target for Cindy, who convinces him to sue to the company, which threatens a potential buy-out that could allow Joel to retire in style.

Like Peter Gibbons in Office Space, Joel is essentially an ordinary guy--Judge’s specialty--who just wants to find his way in life, but is constantly being put upon and hampered by the incompetents around him. Joel is by no means perfect, and in his own slightly bland way he has only himself to blame for his predicament, but that’s the beauty of Judge’s understated approach to social humor. Extract, especially when compared to the blaring antics of most Hollywood company, downplays its humor to a constant low hum that reflects Judge’s appreciation of simplicity and general decency (he is, after all, the creator of Hank Hill, the animated hero of the long-running TV series King of the Hill whose main passion is ensuring that nothing in life is ever too passionate lest it become uncomfortable).

Judge’s films and television work (including, of course, his infamous animated teen morons Beavis and Butt-head) invariably hinges on holding certain types of people in utter disdain, which would seem to suggest a sense of superiority. But, what distinguishes Judge’s comedy and keeps it from being moralistically insufferable is its wonderfully bizarre mixture of misanthropy and sensitivity. Although Judge’s films find myriad ways to mock idiots, hypocrites, and all the other clueless denizens of life who make it difficult for everyone else, the bile is balanced with his affection for the kinds of ordinary people who make the world turn (selling propane, updating bank software, making food extract, etc.), but don’t usually get placed front and center anywhere, especially in Hollywood movies. There is certainly an underlying anger--more like annoyance, really--in Extract, and it has its darkly humorous moments that some might mistake for mean-spiritedness (especially an unexpected death that leads to the film’s denouement), but Judge is ultimately too sympathetic to the plight of the everyman to be branded a simple misanthrope. He just calls it like he sees it, and most of the time he’s dead on.

Extract Blu-Ray
Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
Audio	English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround French Dolby Digital 5.1 surround
Subtitles	English, French, Spanish
Supplements	“Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe” featurette Extended scenes Deleted scene
Distributor	Miramax Films
SRP	$39.99
Release Date	December 22, 2009
VIDEO & AUDIO
Extract is not a particularly strong film from a visual perspective, so it’s not surprising that the image seems a little flat, even on Blu-Ray in a 1080p high-definition transfer. The image is generally clean and sharp, although there is some variation in the detail level from scene to scene. Colors are a bit muted, but well represented, at least as I remember them looking in the theater. The lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround soundtrack is solid. The primarily dialogue-driven nature of the movie keeps it primarily in the front stage, although the surround channels are put to good use whenever music is utilized.
SUPPLEMENTS
The supplements are fairly light, perhaps because Extract hasn’t had time to reach cult film status yet (give it five or ten years). We get a couple of brief extended scenes, a single deleted scene, and the 11-minute featurette “Mike Judge’s Secret Recipe,” which is essentially a making-of doc that features interviews with Judge and most of the cast, including Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, J.K. Simmons, David Koechner, Clifton Collins, Jr., and Ben Affleck.

Overall Rating: (3)

Thoughts? E-mail James Kendrick

All images copyright © Miramax Films