Review of The Darwin Awards (2007) by Lisping H — 06 Sep 2007

By the end of this particular film, I found myself having dueling thoughts about the film's overall effectiveness and originality.

What works in favor of this film is Joseph Fiennes' strong performance as Michael Burrows; a forensic directive who suffers from hemophobia (the fear of blood) but also has the gift of second-guess the motivations of any individual, not to mention, in spite of his obsessive-compulsive demeanor, is a walking nexus of scenario statistics. There are plenty of strong laughs throughout this film that save it from becoming utterly forgettable, especially a side-slapping shower scene featured Fiennes, tangled in a black leather truss, struggling with everything from handling a bar of soap, to handling his cell-phone, to ultimately even getting himself free from the harness. That particular scene ensures the possibility of cult longevity for the film, aside from the film's major flaws.

What works against this film is director Finn Taylor's failure to exercise his indie credibility, while relying too much on generics and recycled material in the composition of this film. As one may immediately notice, the film is loosely based on the real-life, tongue-in-cheek on-line community "The Darwin Awards"; whose purpose is to "honour people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion." including an August 7th, 1985 incident involving a vending machine tip-in, and a December 7, 1990 incident involving the urban legend of the JATO rocket car, both of which are incidents interwoven into the film.

It almost feels as though particular instances were cherry-picked, and just strung together with a strand of fishing wire, thus leaving the story built around these instances incohesive with the insouciant feats themselves. Thus, the mainstream sensibility ultimately feels blatantly borrowed, and at times enfeebled.

Worse yet, there's an obvious bout of desperation resonating with Finn Taylor in this film, from allusions to Wilco to cameo appearances from San Francisco beatniks, to deliberately sprinkle the film with indie appeal, which ultimately harm the project's overall credibility.

Finally, there are attempted plot constructions that are left incomplete, and ultimately unnecessary to the overall body of the film. The whole loop back to the North Beach Killer plot, which gets Michael fired in the first place, for instance, comes across as rather absurd and unconvincing, without any elaboration on that particular plot throughout the whole breadth of the film in-between their first and second rendezvous.

In a nutshell, Joseph Fiennes' performance and a fair amount of successful laughs saves the film from being a total dud, but the film's script, direction and overall organization is stifled heavily by cliches and exorbitance. A mediocre film, both for better and for worse.