After experimenting with subtle social and political commentary with Idiocracy, writer/director Mike Judge returns to the workplace with his latest comedy Extract. Does it trace the same fertile ground as his cult classic Office Space? Yeah, kind of. If only in the details. It’s probably different enough to pass scrutinization but one can’t help but get the feeling of a filmmaker scrabbling to return to what works after going so far out on a limb with his last effort. (For the record, the complete failure of Idiocracy does astound me, but fault is probably owed more to the studio than to Judge or anyone else involved.) On its own though, Extract squeezes quite a few laughs and has some genuinely funny performances.

But first, let’s get the comparisons out of the way. Wacky neighbour? Check. Dysfunctional co-workers? Double check. A really good looking, unobtainable romantic character? You better believe it. A dim-witted best friend full of not-so-helpful suggestions? You better believe it. Work place dilemma that risks bringing down the whole company and our hero? Pretty much there in the liner notes. An ending that’s kind of pat and rather sentimental despite much of the movie’s main plot? Well, that certainly wasn’t entirely true in the case of Office Space, but I will say that that earlier movie didn’t have the killer, twisted ending that Extract does. And when I say killer, I do mean killer.

The Extract of the title is an extract plant owned and operated by Joel (Jason Bateman), a man frustrated by borderline incompetence at the office and a lack of sexual contact with his wife (Kristen Wiig) at home. But Joel sees light at the end of the tunnel. General Mills it seems is interested in buying the plant, which means big bucks and retirement for Joel and his eager partner Brian (J.K. Simmons). But then a couple of odd developments occur: one of the plant’s workers, Step (Clifton Collins Jr.), gets in an accident that results in, ahem, some serious depreciation of his manhood, which results in a temp worker named Cindy (Mila Kunis) making her voluptuous appearance at the plant.

Naturally though, Cindy’s a low rent con woman looking to make a score off Step’s misfortune by pushing him to sue the plant rather than take an insurance settlement. Step’s attorney is a Cellino & Barnes style shyster played by Gene Simmons, and yes, I do mean that Gene Simmons who doesn’t turn out as disappointing a casting choice as I initially reckoned. Indeed, he seems to throw himself in the part. Same goes for Ben Affleck as Dean, who finds a definite niche doing good laid back stoner. With curly locks, scruffy beard and chill disposition it’s almost hard to believe we’re looking at the same Affleck. Way to go, dude! If anyone deserves to get righteous and stay righteous as an actor, it’s Affleck. We’re pulling for you, buddy.

But we’re also pulling for a movie that can mean something more than some cheap, good laughs that linger in our heads after we leave the movie theatre. We’re looking for a story and characters that resonate, like in Office Space and Milton’s plight being a man constantly shifted around the building and having his stapler stolen in a Jungian effort to get him to quit rather than making a scene with his firing. No, I’m afraid Brad the Gigolo’s falling for Joel’s wife after he’s hired by Joel to seduce her so that he can sleep with Cindy guilt free, which came about with some help from Dean the impressionable state brought on after the accidental ingestion of a horse tranquilizer. Kind of a mouthful right? And not having a resolution doesn’t help either. At least in Office Space Peter finds some equilibrium in the end. Joel, I guess, just finds peace with the things that were making him miserable, in which case Extract isn’t comedy, it’s reality