Best movie ever!

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Michael (Joseph Fiennes) has always been drawn to solving mysteries, since he was a boy. When he reaches adulthood, he becomes a criminal profiler for the San Fran police. He's good. Unfortunately, when he spies blood, our Mike faints straight away. Thus, when he does this at a wrong moment, allowing a perp to get away, he is let go. What other profession would be a good fit for his skills? Why, its insurance investigation. At first, a company leader (Kevin Dunn) tells Michael that there are no openings at present. But, after Mikey reveals all the man's secrets back to him, just by observing the boss and his surroundings, he is hired at once. Teaming up with a fellow investigator, Siri (Wynona Rider), they go on road trips to determine the settlement of claims. Siri instantly dislikes many of Michael's over cautious ways. But, after learning the correct happenstances of a man buried under a Coke machine (was it the machine manufacturer's fault or did the man trigger his own demise), Siri is impressed. Further trips uncover incredibly stupid folks. There's the man who claims his car was stolen but who is found to have accidentally let it sink while ice fishing. Then, there's the hilarious tale of the two morons in Nevada (one is played by David Arquette) who try for a speed record with a salvaged government rocket strapped to their car. When the duo finally ends up at the aftermath of a Metallica concert, where two imbeciles tried and failed to go over an extremely high wall to get in without tickets, Siri finally has her eyes on Michael. But, will it be love eternal? This dark, dark comedy has some objectionable language and scenes, on occasion, but is truly a laugh riot. Fiennes is adorable as the man who lives by the odds of accidents and Rider is cute as the somewhat jaded investigator. Arquette, Dunn, Tom Hollander, Lukas Haas, and all of the cameos, including Metallica itself, are a pleasure indeed. Then, too, the scenery is wonderful as it varies from snowy Minnesota to dry Nevada to lovely Oregon. Most importantly, the script is clever and funny while the direction never lags. Award yourself an evening of chuckles by finding the film soon.

This movie had potential. It had a interesting premise, people who kill themselves through their own sheer stupidity, but struggled to create a plot to draw the view in. Joseph Fiennes awkwardly plays a police personality profiler turned insurance claims investigator who faints at the sight of blood and can't figure out social interactions. He gets paired up with a no-nonsense insurance claims investor played by Winona Ryder, and they go cross country investigating and debunking the claims of various Darwin Award types who hurt themselves through their ridiculous actions. The movie is filled with brief appearances by recognizable TV actors like Ty Burrell, Julianna Marguiles, Josh Charles, Tim Blake Nelson, Juliette Lewis, and David Arquette. There is even a brief appearance Mythbusters' Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who have debunked several of the stories featured in the movie on their show. However, the laughs and only occasional, and the time in between them could best be described as plodding. The movie isn't terrible, but there is probably a more entertaining way you could kill 90 minutes.

This was one of the funniest movies I have ever seen, hands down. It did take a few minutes to get into, but ultimately my husband and I enjoyed it immensely. Definitely worth renting.There were so many scenes we loved, where my husband literally almost fell off the couch from laughing so hard. Not sure why some people didn't like it. Maybe I can understand the issue of mocking death. But then why would you go see a comedy that you know is about death to begin with? So don't pay attention to ridiculous comments from people who are oversensitive. The movie is well acted and very, very funny. Also was good to see Winona again. Okay, so maybe she's a klepto, but hey she can act. And that Joseph Feinnes is awesome as well...enjoyed his nude shower scene :-)

It took roughly five minutes to tell The Darwin Awards was an awful, misbegotten, badly directed piece of tripe; I gave it another fifteen to change my mind, and when it didn't, I turned it off, not willing to give up another hour and change being tortured with gag inducing 'quirky' characters undergoing a 'quirky' storyline that would no doubt entreat the viewer to find its 'quirky' heart and undergo a 'quirky' catharsis. The disgust this movie induced in me was a familiar sort, and when I checked IMDb and saw it was by the same fellow who inflicted "Dream with the Fishes" on hundreds of unsuspecting film enthusiasts including myself, Finn Taylor, I understood what I needed to do, namely warn you, my fellow movie watchers, against this and any other film written and directed by this man. (There are only three, the two aforementioned and "Cherish"; it's a small blessing that Taylor seems to take his time either writing, editing or -more likely- getting funding for his project, which have come out at four to five year intervals.) You may, like me, have been curious about this film due to your also having chuckled at the grotesque comedy of the Darwin award winners, but I will say in all honesty, this film does not do them justice. Ironically, the filmmaker himself has not has his career killed churning out these horrifically stupid films, which would seem to imply that the Hollywood independent film scene is not governed by natural selection. That's a pity.What is the essence of what makes this and his other films suck? It's a number of things, starting with the quirkiness. Why bother with richly imagined characters when you can stack up a couple esoteric phobias and qualities and call it macaroni? Why indeed. So our main character in The Darwin Awards is a police profiler who faints at the sight of blood: comedy gold, because you know it is just soooo ironic, and irony is best when it isn't subtle and is poorly executed in annoyingly mannered performances.Then there is the 'intelligence' of the scripts, where you'll find, for instance, a serial killer complaining about the profiler quoting an overused line from a famous poem. How exquisite, and yet in the midst of such a badly made film, one sees the difference between knowledge and practical wisdom.The Darwin Awards features a moronic and grating student documentary maker who is following the main character around, giving another 'clever' layer to the film, by annoying the viewer with those stupid camera frame lines that let you know when you're looking through the documentary filmmakers pov, versus all the other shots that aren't annoying hand-held drek. The maker of the actual film tries to avoid being seen as pretentious and untalented by having a filmmaker in it that is satirized as being pretentious and untalented. Because I'm an irresponsible reviewer, I'll guess that this character is an unconscious avatar of Taylor's own self-doubts about his talent, and I'm hoping someone who knows and loves this man will play intellectual midwife to him and help him realize that he should stop making films, and maybe consider a profession more suited to his talents, which I'm sure are substantial, albeit not manifested in his cinematic work thus far. They say as a young man, Kurosawa was interested in painting, but realized after a time that while he was proficient enough, his works were derivative, and so he got into film making, where he excelled. Perhaps Finn Taylor should get out of film making and become a painter.