‘Extract’ Review: Good Performances Aren’t Enough

Writer/director Mike Judge’s “Extract” is being promoted as: “The creator of OFFICE SPACE heads back to work,” but this isn’t exactly true in the purest “Office Space” sense. Our protagonist Joel (Jason Bateman) does spend time at the company he owns, a flavor extract plant, but for the most part those goings on are a subplot to what is essentially a relationship comedy — and only a mildly amusing one at that.

Joel’s problem is that he can never get home from work before his wife Susie (Kristen Wiig) puts on the sweatpants at the strike of 8pm … and once the sweatpants are on there will be no sex for the Extract King. What makes him late is the personnel and personality nonsense at the office; what slows him down is Nathan (a terrific David Koecher), one of those boorish nightmares of a neighbor whose lack of self-awareness eventually forces you to be rude to them. So Joel is frustrated — very frustrated, and taking advice from the exact wrong person: His buddy Dean (Ben Affleck), a long-haired bartender who has only one answer to every imaginable problem: Narcotics. (more…)