The Darwin Awards is a quirky little independent film, loosely based on the website & spin-off books cataloging the real-life stories of people who have suffered accidents caused by their own stupidity. Any individuals who are killed are posthumously given a 'Darwin Award' for improving Mankind's gene pool by removing themselves from it.
The movie stars Joseph Fiennes as a police profiler whose unfortunate tendency to faint at the sight of blood (he's phobic) causes him to get discharged from the force. Finding employment with an insurance company, he's partnered with experienced, hot-shot investigator Winona Ryder, who specialises in bizarre and unusual claims. Together the two of them travel back and forth across America, examining various strange accidents.
One of the things I liked most about this film is that the accidents that Fiennes and Ryder investigate are all based on well known urban legends, and such modern-day myths have always fascinated me. I own many books on the subject, and have enjoyed previous movies that have either used an urban legend as a starting point and then built a story around it (for example, Dead Man's Curve, When a Stranger Calls, and Lover's Lane), or have featured several legends (all three Urban Legends movies, and the anthology film Campfire Tales). Therefore, I got a huge thrill seeing several urban legends reenacted in The Darwin Awards.
Although it's an independent production, the movie has an impressive budget and features many big name stars in cameos (including Chris Penn in his last role - he died the day before the film debuted at Sundance). However it went straight to DVD, both in America and here in the UK. I suppose it's hard to market an offbeat, character-led black comedy in which most of the laughs are generated by people getting either seriously injured or killed. Personally, I liked it a lot.
The movie stars Joseph Fiennes as a police profiler whose unfortunate tendency to faint at the sight of blood (he's phobic) causes him to get discharged from the force. Finding employment with an insurance company, he's partnered with experienced, hot-shot investigator Winona Ryder, who specialises in bizarre and unusual claims. Together the two of them travel back and forth across America, examining various strange accidents.
One of the things I liked most about this film is that the accidents that Fiennes and Ryder investigate are all based on well known urban legends, and such modern-day myths have always fascinated me. I own many books on the subject, and have enjoyed previous movies that have either used an urban legend as a starting point and then built a story around it (for example, Dead Man's Curve, When a Stranger Calls, and Lover's Lane), or have featured several legends (all three Urban Legends movies, and the anthology film Campfire Tales). Therefore, I got a huge thrill seeing several urban legends reenacted in The Darwin Awards.
Although it's an independent production, the movie has an impressive budget and features many big name stars in cameos (including Chris Penn in his last role - he died the day before the film debuted at Sundance). However it went straight to DVD, both in America and here in the UK. I suppose it's hard to market an offbeat, character-led black comedy in which most of the laughs are generated by people getting either seriously injured or killed. Personally, I liked it a lot.