Mike Judge has had some strange luck with movies.  Office Space wasn't a runaway hit in theaters but it's a cult classic now.  Idiocracy was dumped in a handful of towns without much fanfare and then quickly went to home video where it's picking up fans.  Now there's Extract.  Judge's latest film tones down some of the darker, high concept humor from his last film, but it doesn't quite recapture the simple truth and greatness of his first.  I'm not sure how Extract should be marketed since it's not vulgar enough to play with the recent run of R-Rated comedies, and it's not coming from the same cynical place as Judge's previous efforts.  If I had to compare it to anything, I'd say it's closer to King of the Hill than anything else Judge has done--and it tries (sometimes unsuccessfully) to balance its cynicism with sappy heart and soul.

The parts of Idiocracy that didn't work for me were the more earnest parts where the film tried to rally some empathy for its characters.  That movie was a farce and it worked best when it was in full on satire mode.  Extract is a lot less of a satire and as a result it has a lot more earnest character moments and again I think it loses some steam there.  The film is full of great gags and memorable characters but it spends a lot of time with the uncomfortable moral dilemma that Jason Bateman's character gets himself into.  It never fully pays off, and the ending offers only a limp resolution.  In a way, it's a fairly realistic conclusion, but what the film needs is the cathartic, comedic release of a fax machine beat down.