Movie Summary of Extract by Michael the Moviegoer.
EXTRACT = ***1/2
“Mike Judge Extracts The Laughs”
Mike Judge’s comedies seem a generation removed from the current trend in potty-mouth humor from the likes of Judd Apatow and Kevin Smith. But I find that refreshing. It’s easy to get laughs from juvenile jokes with shock-value language, but Judge extracts laughs from situations, action and plot.
In the third feature film from the “Beavis And Butt-Head” creator, following “Office Space” and the criminally overlooked “Idiocracy”, Judge casts Jason Bateman as the owner of a flavor-extract factory trying to juggle a failing marriage and the potential sale of his company to General Mills.
In a domino-effect of comic situations, Bateman hires a “pool cleaner” to seduce his wife into having an affair; an accident at his factory leads to a lawsuit when a worker loses a testicle; he unknowingly hires a sexy sociopathic con-artist; and throughout he leans on the shoulder of his drug-supplying bartender friend played hilariously by an almost unrecognizable Ben Affleck.
Like “Idiocracy”, “Extract” seems doomed to disappear as quickly as it was released due to a lack of marketing support. It’s currently out there at a theatre near you, but somehow it feels invisble. If you want to see a funny comedy, “Extract” is well worth seeking out.
DVD Double Feature: I love comedies that rely on Murphy’s Law. Where anything that can go wrong will go wrong. That’s not always easy to pull off successfully for a feature-length duration. But “Extract” succeeds at this and it reminded me of one of my favorite comedies based on that Murphy’s Law principal. Martin Scorsese’s 1985 comic masterpiece “After Hours”. Griffin Dunne spends one long terrifying yet hilarious night in New York’s Soho district. What begins as a simple date with Rosanna Arquette, quickly unravels into a series of nightmarish events for Dunne who, like Dorothy in “The Wizard Of Oz”, just wants to get home. It’s directed by Scorsese and co-stars Cheech & Chong. How wonderfully weird is that?
Michael The Moviegoer
