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Mike Judge found the pulse of our work place nation
with “Office Space” his first feature film. Judge the creator
of “Beavis and Butthead” and “King of the Hill” two funny
TV animated comedies (the former originally designed to
“present” and make fun of the MTV music videos of the time
while the latter truly became the only show to exceed the
comedic grasp of “The Simpsons” without making its characters
complete buffoons) has had a difficult time following up
“Office Space” his box office flop but critically acclaimed
cult classic. ***
“Extract” finds Judge building on “Office Space” without
aping it; the owner of a flavor extract company Joel (Jason
Bateman) manages his business with almost as haphazardly
as his personal life; his wife Suzie (Kirsten Wig) has lost
interest in their marriage and Joel finds himself tempted
by a new employee Cindy (Mila Kunis) particularly after
a plan to rekindle the spark in his marriage suggested by
drinking buddy Dean (Ben Affleck) goes awry. He also faces
losing his company when one of his employees (Clifton Collins
Jr.) loses a testicle in a work related accident. ***
As with “Office Space” Judge manages to capture the
drudgery of manufacturing jobs and often the absurd situations
that employees and management find themselves in the position
of. While there was much to like about the futuristic satire
“Idiocracy” it’s clear that Judge was out of his element
at something of a loss trying to imagine the futuristic
“common” people in that film. “Idocracy” also drifted into
flatfooted political satire something that Judge has done
far more effectively in his smaller, more “realistic” films
when portraying slice-of-life America. ***
Filled with sharp performances, deft writing and direction
“Extract” has the wonderful smell of a well mixed comedic
satire with just enough touch of drama to make it resonate.
Bateman continues to be the perfect “everyman” in film and
television and it’s a pity that there aren’t more film projects
focusing on his befuddled type of characterizations. He
has inherited Jimmy Stewart’s deft comedic touch and brings
just the right flavor to “Extract” making it a memorable
comedy. ---
Image & Sound:
“Extract” captures the flavor of the theatrical presentation
of the film (an ideal one I should note) with a crisp, colorful
image. Blacks are solid throughout although detail is a
bit ill-defined at times (particularly during darker sequences),
on the whole the film looks quite nice with excellent detail
particularly in the scenes set outdoors. ***
The audio sounds marvelous with a mix 5.1 DTD-HD mix
that captures all of the activity of the warehouse in wonderful
rich, detailed sound. Scenes outside of the factory tend
to fall back into a standard flat presentation with the
front and center speakers getting most of the work out.
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