Even with one of the great casts in the history of low-budget cinema, The Darwin Awards demonstrates that if you don't know the difference between having a great premise and having a real point, you can only make a mediocre film.
Michael Burrows (Joseph Fiennes) is an obsessive and neurotic criminal profiler for the San Francisco police department who loses his job when he lets a serial killer escape. Desperate and broke, he decides to see if he can making a living off his personal obsession with so-called "Darwin Awards". The title refer to incidents where people kill themselves in such spectacularly stupid ways that they arguably improve the human gene pool by taking themselves out of it. Burrows offers his services to a life insurance company, offering to save them millions of dollars in payouts by discovering when people's own idiocy is responsible for their demise. Burrows is teamed up with Siri Taylor (Winona Ryder), a veteran claims investigator who doubts Burrows' behavioral theories can substitute for her more practical approach.
As Burrows and Taylor drive around the Western United States investigating "Darwin Award" cases, like the guy who welded a rocket on the back of his car, the guy who went ice fishing with dynamite and the people who thought a motor home's cruise control was the same as a plane's autopilot, the story dabbles in a bit of romantic comedy, Burrows' fixation on the killer who got away from him and the possibility that Burrows' obsession is turning him into his own potential "Darwin Award" winner. The movie eventually winds back up in San Francisco, where our two heroes track down the escaped serial killer through the use of a tourist guide book and a final scene that takes the laws of physics, wraps them up in a pretty bow and fires them into the Sun.
The Darwin Awards would make a great premise for a very, very darkly comedic series on HBO. Investigating the absurdly moronic behavior that results in Rube Goldbereque death and injury would be a great formula for a black hearted TV show where you could ladle social commentary and some romantic tension between Burrows and Taylor on top of whatever imbecilic and unintentional suicide they're looking into that week.
As a 90 minute film, however, The Darwin Awards is never more than mildly amusing because it never figures out what is the point of its story. Are we supposed to laugh at these stupid people? Are we supposed to laugh at Burrows for thinking he's any different from them? Is the movie trying to shame us for finding humor in the deaths of others? Is the story about death by stupidity or is it about the unavoidable but tragic risks that exist in normal life, like slipping in the shower and breaking your neck? Is the audience supposed to learn that they can't get too wrapped up in the fates of other people? Does writer/director Finn Taylor want to make a point about how society treats people on the low end of the economic and educational scale? The truth is that this movie tries to make all of those points and a few more, resulting in an unfocused and meandering story that ultimately makes no point at all. It also doesn't help that the movie mixes traditional filming with mockumentary footage without any rhyme or reason.
Though it's fundamentally flawed and hampered by Taylor's inability to tell a straightforward joke if his life depended on it, The Darwin Awards still manages to be halfway decent. That's mostly due to the deadpan performance of Joseph Fiennes and the adultly adorable Winona Ryder. They create and sustain appealing characters even as the story never lives up to their acting. And any film that features the Mythbusters can't be all bad.
If you'd like a lighthearted take on a very dark subject that you'll enjoy more the less you think about it, go rent The Darwin Awards.
Michael Burrows (Joseph Fiennes) is an obsessive and neurotic criminal profiler for the San Francisco police department who loses his job when he lets a serial killer escape. Desperate and broke, he decides to see if he can making a living off his personal obsession with so-called "Darwin Awards". The title refer to incidents where people kill themselves in such spectacularly stupid ways that they arguably improve the human gene pool by taking themselves out of it. Burrows offers his services to a life insurance company, offering to save them millions of dollars in payouts by discovering when people's own idiocy is responsible for their demise. Burrows is teamed up with Siri Taylor (Winona Ryder), a veteran claims investigator who doubts Burrows' behavioral theories can substitute for her more practical approach.
As Burrows and Taylor drive around the Western United States investigating "Darwin Award" cases, like the guy who welded a rocket on the back of his car, the guy who went ice fishing with dynamite and the people who thought a motor home's cruise control was the same as a plane's autopilot, the story dabbles in a bit of romantic comedy, Burrows' fixation on the killer who got away from him and the possibility that Burrows' obsession is turning him into his own potential "Darwin Award" winner. The movie eventually winds back up in San Francisco, where our two heroes track down the escaped serial killer through the use of a tourist guide book and a final scene that takes the laws of physics, wraps them up in a pretty bow and fires them into the Sun.
The Darwin Awards would make a great premise for a very, very darkly comedic series on HBO. Investigating the absurdly moronic behavior that results in Rube Goldbereque death and injury would be a great formula for a black hearted TV show where you could ladle social commentary and some romantic tension between Burrows and Taylor on top of whatever imbecilic and unintentional suicide they're looking into that week.
As a 90 minute film, however, The Darwin Awards is never more than mildly amusing because it never figures out what is the point of its story. Are we supposed to laugh at these stupid people? Are we supposed to laugh at Burrows for thinking he's any different from them? Is the movie trying to shame us for finding humor in the deaths of others? Is the story about death by stupidity or is it about the unavoidable but tragic risks that exist in normal life, like slipping in the shower and breaking your neck? Is the audience supposed to learn that they can't get too wrapped up in the fates of other people? Does writer/director Finn Taylor want to make a point about how society treats people on the low end of the economic and educational scale? The truth is that this movie tries to make all of those points and a few more, resulting in an unfocused and meandering story that ultimately makes no point at all. It also doesn't help that the movie mixes traditional filming with mockumentary footage without any rhyme or reason.
Though it's fundamentally flawed and hampered by Taylor's inability to tell a straightforward joke if his life depended on it, The Darwin Awards still manages to be halfway decent. That's mostly due to the deadpan performance of Joseph Fiennes and the adultly adorable Winona Ryder. They create and sustain appealing characters even as the story never lives up to their acting. And any film that features the Mythbusters can't be all bad.
If you'd like a lighthearted take on a very dark subject that you'll enjoy more the less you think about it, go rent The Darwin Awards.