Review of Extract (2009) by A.d. O — 19 Nov 2011

Please excuse me if I sound a little rocky, I haven't typed a review in quite some time, but now I feel sturdy enough to give out my opinion some more. Let's hear it for consistency!

Now, this movie is about a man named Joel (Jason Bateman) who runs a factory for extract of some sort that he learned from his grandmother apparently. It then goes downhill when an on-the-job accident puts a veteran employee (Clifton Collins Jr.) of Joel's out of work, and almost out of testicles (literally). At first, the victim, Step, seems content with being guaranteed the insurance settlement, but then trouble ensues when a young, money-grubbing troublemaker (Mila Kunis) persuades Step to sue the company for all that it has... for some reason.

It's a little disappointing to me when this entire movie could be a motivational advertisement for D.A.R.E. I won't go into complete detail, fearing that if I spoil the movie too much, it will give me negative feedback, but a certain sub-plot to the movie takes place after Joel's friend (Ben Affleck) persuades Joel to take drugs. This happens a couple times in the movie and only leads to Joel's problems becoming seriously worse, which only makes me want to jump inside of the movie and punch him in the face and call him an idiot. A major problem with this movie is that everyone in it seems to have no common sense, or just have no self-control, or are just plain stupid. All of the actors did a good enough job playing the roles (though Gene Simmons may have overdone it), it's just they all seemed to be reading something written by someone trying too hard to get a laugh out of people who find drug-related humor funny. I never laughed once throughout the entire movie, but I guess this isn't my type of humor; and I was pleasantly surprised to see the movie have characters that generally seemed like they cared about the other characters in the movie. In the end, however, it doesn't save the movie.

I recommend this movie to anyone who likes works by Mike Judge or anyone who likes low-brow humor. Not for the easily confused.