BEFORE: No films about Hitler's birthday, and no marijuana-themed comedy liked "Half Baked" or "How High". I've already got a theme going on karmic retribution and ironic deaths. Linking from "Switch", Jimmy Smits was in "Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith" with Natalie Portman, who was in "Black Swan" with Winona Ryder (last seen in "Great Balls of Fire!).
THE PLOT: A forensic detective and an insurance investigator trek across the U.S. to investigate potential Darwin Award winners.
AFTER: Of course, the Darwin Awards are an annual listing of people who helped human evolution along, by removing themselves from the gene pool in stupid ways. (You'd think the movie would take 30 seconds to explain the name, but you'd be wrong.) And Charles Darwin himself died on April 19, 1882 (Damn, missed that anniversary by ONE day...)
The film features the aftermath of some very ironic deaths, however some are based on noted urban legends, which don't qualify for the Darwin Awards, simply because they didn't ever happen. I should know, I spend a fair amount of time on sites like Snopes.com, checking to see which stories are true - the guy who supposedly strapped a rocket on his car and launched it into the side of a mountain? Didn't happen.
The loosest of narratives is applied here to connect the freak accidents - along with the addition of a documentary filmmaker who follows around the two investigators, making us feel like we're part of the action. However, the film is NOT completely made in single-camera documentary style, it quite often lapses into standard multi-camera coverage. So either that student filmmaker has three arms holding three cameras, or the whole thing's bunk - guess which. I wonder if most people would even notice the too-thorough coverage, since cross-cutting in a scene is such a standard. If you're going for a documentary feel, then commit, like "Blair Witch Project" did.
One of the investigators works along the lines of a Sherlock Holmes/Monk/The Mentalist hyper-observational type - but this is a fine line to walk, it's quite easy to turn an overly observant character into a quirky freak - and this one's well over the line, with his ability to see an accident through the eyes of the deceased, as well as an aversion to blood that causes him to faint (and yet he never considers a different line of work...odd).
I should love this film, since I'm a fan of urban legends - yet I should hate this film, since it gives credence to some of the more outrageous ones (Google "Dynamite Dog" or "Auto Pilot/Cruise Control"). Why couldn't the film use real Darwin Award incidents, which actually happened? So tonight I'm splitting the difference.
Also starring Joseph Fiennes (last heard in "Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas"), Wilder Valderrama (last seen in "Fast Food Nation"), Tim Blake Nelson (last seen in "The Good Girl"), with cameos from David Arquette, Juliette Lewis, Kevin Dunn, Nora Dunn, Judah Friedlander (last seen in "I Hate Valentine's Day"), Lukas Haas, Julianna Margulies, Chris Penn (last seen in "Stealing Harvard"), D.B. Sweeney, Robin Tunney, Mythbusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, and the band Metallica.
RATING: 5 out of 10 vending machines
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