This particular list has been the delight of your email inbox for some time but now some filmmakers tried to make a film about the list that tells of how some schmucks shuffled off their mortal coils (and supposedly helped out the gene pool).
What the back of the box says:
The Darwin Awards is "a deliciously dark, highly entertaining film" (Sundance Film Festival Guide). Detective Michael Burrows (Fiennes) is obsessed with The Darwin Awards, which are bestowed posthumously to people who accidentally kill themselves in incredibly stupid ways. So when he's fired for bungling an arrest, he offers his profiling services to a life insurance company, and with the help of a tough claims investigator (Ryder), he sets out to learn how to identify these idiots... before they die!”
Joseph Fiennes plays a cop who can’t stand the sight of blood that that little character quirk ends up costing him his job. He’s also obsessed with something that we’ve all gotten in our inbox – a list called the Darwin Awards that lists several stories of how some idiots ending up killing themselves.
He takes his second obsession to the offices of an insurance company in hopes that if they were to identify the traits of these wackos that the insurance company could identify the nutters and not sell them policies. The insurance company is game so he’s sent out with their best agent in the field (Winona Ryder).
We’ve all gotten those hilarious lists in email that chronicles the deaths of some complete idiots (if they’re true that is). It might’ve been an good idea for a movie, but they didn’t manage to do it with this film. The only funny bits come from a few of the unfortunate deaths, but most of them come off with the thud of a dead body. It’s strange since the cast is made up of quite a few famous names that have done better films.
The film has an odd presentation in that it’s told through the eyes of a documentary filmmaker who is following Fiennes around - even though he started filming him while he’s a cop and just continues to film him when he loses his job. The film does feature cameos from Metallica, Chris Penn (in one of his last performances), Lukas Haas, David Arquette, etc. but you think that they should’ve known better.
The Darwin Awards is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include the 5-minute “The Making of the Darwin Awards.” It has interviews with Joe Fiennes, director Finn Taylor, Juliette Lewis, David Arquette, effects man Yves De Buno, Lucas Haas, Josh Freidlander, Chris Penn, Tom Hollander, and Juliana Margulies.
There are also cast and crew interviews, but they also use some of the same footage in the making of. It has footage of director Finn Taylor (4 minutes), Winona Ryder (50 seconds), Joseph Fiennes (2 minutes), Juliette Lewis (1 minute), Juliana Marguiles (20 seconds), Chris Penn (30 seconds), David Arquette (40 seconds), and Wilmer Valderrama (1 minute). There’s also a photo gallery and trailers for Kickin’ It Old Skool and Even Money.
I suppose that the Darwin Awards had potential, but this film just comes off like the smoldering corpse of a guy that strapped a jet engine to his car and crashed into a mountain.
The Darwin Awards is now available at Amazon an AmazonUK . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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