New Releases for the Week of February 19, 2016

THE WITCH

(A24) Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson, Bathsheba Garnett, Sarah Stephens, Julian Richings. Directed by Robert Eggers

In New England not too long after the Pilgrims landed, a farmer is banished from the colony and forced to move his family to a plot of land on the edge of a forest reportedly haunted by witches. Soon thereafter, unsettling things begin to happen and the eyes of the family turn to their teenage daughter, who adamantly denies that she is practicing witchcraft. However as things turn more unsettling, the family’s faith and loyalty will surely be tested. One of the most acclaimed films to come out of the 2015 Sundance Festival, it finally is hitting theaters; the critical response has been so near-unanimous with praise that the studio moved it from a limited release to a wide one.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for disturbing violent content and graphic nudity)

Busco Novio Para Mi Mujer

(Pantelion) Sandra Echeverria, Arath de la Torre, Jesus Ochoa, Alejandro Cuétara. A middle-aged middle class man in Mexico is fed up with his shrew of a trophy wife, so he decides to come up with a plan to end his marriage; he hires a professional seducer to sweep her off her feet and inspire her to leave him. However, when the plan works all too well, he realizes that his life is so much better with her than without her.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Now Playing: AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Artegon Marketplace, Regal The Loop
Rating: PG-13 (for sexual material, some language and smoking)

Race

(Focus) Stephan James, Jason Sudeikis, Carice van Houten, Jeremy Irons. Jesse Owens to this day remains one of the most celebrated athletes in American history. His journey taking him from a country that looked down upon him and his race to a celebrated icon of freedom and defiance against tyranny is one that is seldom told – until now.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biographical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements and language)

Risen

(TriStar) Joseph Fiennes, Tom Felton, Peter Firth, Cliff Curtis. The crucifixion of the Christ as seen through the eyes of a Roman centurion. Wait a minute; wasn’t that the plot for Hail, Caesar?

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Biblical Drama
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: PG-13 (for Biblical violence including some disturbing images)

Snowtime!

(Shout! Factory) Starring the voices of Angela Galuppo, Lucinda Davis, Sandra Oh, Ross Lynch. What kid doesn’t love to get a day off from school to go play in the snow? Rival groups of kids battle in the ultimate snowball fight for possession of the greatest snow fort ever built. This French animated feature makes its U.S. debut.

See the trailer here.
For more on the movie this is the website.
Release Formats: Standard
Genre: Animated Feature
Now Playing: AMC Loew’s Universal Cineplex
Rating: PG (for mild thematic elements and rude humor)

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The Red Baron (Der rote Baron)

The bloody Red Baron on the prowl for Snoopy.

(2008) Biographical Drama (Monterey Media) Matthias Schweighofer, Til Schweiger, Lena Headey, Joseph Fiennes, Maxim Mehmet, Hanno Kofler, Volker Bruch, Richard Krajko, Steffan Schroeder, Lukas Prizkazky, Iveta Jirickova, Vlastina Svatkova, Axel Prahl, Gitta Schweighofer, Brano Holicek, Julie Engelbrecht, Jan Vlasak, Luise Bahr, Irena Machova. Directed by Nikolai Muellerschoen

During the First World War, it wasn’t just a collision of nations. It was the 19th century being pulled forward, violently, into the 20th. The concepts of nobility and civility were turned around by the nose by the realities of brutal, modern warfare.

Baron Manfred von Richtofen (Schweighofer) came from the German nobility, but nonetheless had a fascination with flying. While most of his class would be joining the cavalry – a gentleman’s pursuit – von Richtofen was firm that when World War I started, he would join the Imperial German Air Service, the predecessor of the Luftwaffe. That was where, he felt, he belonged and his success showed him to be correct. With his brother Lothar (Bruch) and friends Werner Voss (Schweiger) and Friedrich Sternberg (Mehmet) at his side, he had formed the Flying Circus, a brigade second to none in shooting down enemy planes during the war.

One such victim was Captain Roy Brown (Fiennes) of Canada. Von Richtofen pulled the wounded flyer from the wreckage of his plane and with the assistance of passing nurse Kate Otersdorf (Headey) helps apply a tourniquet to his leg before leaving the Canadian in the care of the nurse.

Von Richtofen is appalled when his Lothar strafes and kills an enemy pilot who had already been forced down. Later he gets into a dogfight with Brown who had escaped the German POW camp that he’d been taken to after being nursed to health by Kate. Once again von Richtofen shoots down the Canadian and lands to see if he’s all right, damaging his own plane in the process. In No-Man’s land, the two share a friendly drink at which time the Red Baron, as he has come to be called by the Allies, discovers that the nurse who’d tended to Brown was in love with the dashing German air fighter

Upon his return, von Richtofen receives the news that his friend Sternberg has been shot down and killed, which sends the Baron into an emotional tailspin, much to Lothar’s disgust. During an ensuing dogfight, von Richtofen is wounded in the skull and sent to be cared for – but you can guess who now can’t you?

As Kate and Manfred begin to grow closer, Kate is disturbed by von Richtofen’s cavalier attitude towards the war. She takes him on a tour of the hospital and gives him a tongue lashing for treating the war like a game. As his friends and protégés continue to be shot down like flies, the Red Baron discovers that he is being used by the German high command to sell a war they can’t win. When he speaks out to his commanding officers about it, he is sent back to active combat after having been offered a position in the Rear Echelon. So back to the skies he takes for a final date with destiny.

This is a gorgeously shot film that makes the most of its aerial footage. Some of those sequences are really well-shot (the ones with practical aircraft), although the CGI dogfights are unconvincing for the most part. This was one of the most expensive movies made in Germany to this date (and also one of the biggest flops) but it doesn’t appear much of the budget went to computer effects.

The dialogue is also cringe-inducing and florid. For example, at one point a melancholy Manfred tells Kate “You are my greatest triumph” as he prepares to march off to his doom. Cue weepy violins. Of course, it might have been more meaningful had there been an actual romance between the two. All that is really known is that there was a nurse named Kate Otersdorf and von Richtofen knew her. How romantic the relationship was is subject to conjecture; there are no records and no correspondence confirming it. Certainly there could have been but the very class-conscious von Richtofen might not have been amenable to a relationship with someone of a lower social class.

And about the real von Richtofen. Yes, there’s no doubt that he was a gentleman of his time but the chivalry that he espoused was a lot different than what we think of the term today. Not only did he not get angry about strafing enemy pilots, he encouraged it. He often targeted pilots once the gunner had been taken out; that was a way of ensuring that the pilot wouldn’t live to fight another day. While he felt camaraderie with enemy pilots and often saluted them as antagonists, he had a war to win and knew that in order to win it Germany must have control of the skies.

Still, it is pleasant to see combatants portrayed in such a manner and there is no doubt that enemies treated each other with greater respect back then than they do now. In some ways, The Red Baron is a bit of an anachronism in its own way as having Captain Brown exclaim to Manfred “She has the hots for you!” The filmmakers try hard to make an inspiring, thrilling war epic but sadly end up making the movie look like just another bloated, failed war picture that has enough going for it to be worth a look but not enough to look all that hard for it.

WHY RENT THIS: Some nice aerial footage. Heroic portrayal of a bygone age.
WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Stilted dialogue. A few too many historical liberties.
FAMILY VALUES: Plenty of wartime violence and some sensuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Although the movie was a German production shot in Eastern Europe, the dialogue was shot in English in hopes of attracting an international audience.
NOTABLE HOME VIDEO EXTRAS: There’s a featurette on the real Red Baron.
BOX OFFICE PERFORMANCE: $40,239 on a $22.4M production budget.
SITES TO SEE: Netflix (Rent DVD/Rent Blu-Ray/Stream), Amazon (not available), Vudu (rent/buy),  iTunes (rent/buy), Flixster (not available), Target Ticket (not available)
COMPARISON SHOPPING: The Blue Max
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Interstellar

Hercules (2014)

All these guys can smell what the Rock is cooking.

(2014) Swords and Sandals (Paramount/MGM) Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, John Hurt, Aksel Hennie, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Reece Ritchie, Joseph Fiennes, Tobias Santelmann, Peter Mullan, Rebecca Ferguson, Isaac Andrews, Joe Anderson, Stephen Peacocke, Nicholas Moss, Robert Whitelock, Christopher Fairbank, Irina Shayk, Barbara Palvin. Directed by Brett Ratner

Being a legend isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You have this high bar to live up to and the tales of your accomplishments can take on a mythic quality. When you’re Hercules, the son of Zeus, that can be doubly aggravating. It can also send you on a retreat from life.

Hercules (Johnson) has been living with his reputation most of his life. Freakishly strong, he wears a lion skin supposedly from the Lion of Nemea whom he slew as one of his twelve labors performed to get Hera off his back (Hera, the wife of Zeus, was none too pleased with the nascent godling from her husband’s loins). However, he employs his nephew Iolaus (Ritchie) to spread the tales of his legend – which makes his enemies fearful of what he can do. That can come in useful when you’re a mercenary.

Which is what Hercules has become. He was once under the employ of Athenian King Eurystheus (Fiennes) with a wife (Shayk) and children but after they were slaughtered and Hercules himself blamed for the heinous crime – which he can’t remember whether or not he had done – he was banished and wanders Greece accompanied by Iolaus, his right hand man Autolycus (Sewell), the prophet Amphiaraus (McShane) who is also a skilled fighter in his own right, the Amazon warrior Atalanta (Berdal) and the mute berserker Tydeus (Hennie). They make a formidable bunch.

They are given a job by Lord Cotys (Hurt) of Thrace whose land is in the midst of a bloody civil war. The dark, nefarious sorcerer Rhesus (Santelmann) has raised an army of demons and centaurs, burning down villages and massacring the inhabitants and bewitching the survivors to fight for him. Cotys’ daughter Ergenia (Ferguson) and her son Arius (Andrews) beseech the warrior for his help and he, taken by Ergenia’s giving nature, agrees to train the Thracian army to stand up to the rebel, with Cotys’ bemused General Sitacles (Mullan) somewhat skeptical about his success.

However, nothing is ever as it seems in Hercules’ world. He will have to become the hero of legend to save his crew and Thrace, and not just the legend invented by his nephew. In short, he must become Hercules, son of Zeus.

I have to admit that I wasn’t sure about the casting of Johnson as Hercules. He always seems to have a twinkle in his eye and a fairly laid back attitude as an action hero and I have always thought of Hercules as much more serious. No need to worry – Johnson makes an excellent Hercules. While I question the decision to have him wear a wig and fake beard, he certainly has the physique and he is a much better actor than most of the ones that have played Hercules in the past (although Kevin Sorbo was and is a terrific actor). I’d say that Johnson really carries the movie.

While the trailers show giant boars and lions and hydras and such, there is surprisingly little in the way of those sorts of special effects. That’s mainly because the graphic novel that the film is based on eschewed much of the mythological elements of Hercules’ story in favor of a more down to earth telling of his tale which is an original one.

I have to say that the movie is much more entertaining than I expected. Johnson’s natural charisma helps on that score, but Ratner, a director not known for subtlety, has a sure hand here and allows the characters to develop and make some headway. McShane, always dependable, is something of a mentor to Hercules and seems to be alone in knowing the truth of his tale. Sewell who often gets cast in villain roles gets a rare opportunity in a heroic cast and makes the most of it.

The fight scenes are well done and Hercules’ feats of strength are mostly believable here. It’s all mostly brute strength rather than agility and grace, but we get those from Bolso and Sewell in their sequences so it isn’t all skull crushing and horse throwing.

While the plot here is predictable (the plot twist that drives the last half of the movie is one you’ll see coming a mile away and the second half of the movie suffers as a result) and the dialogue tends towards the bombastic, this isn’t the kind of movie you go to see for the story. You go for the spectacle. You go for the action. And you go for the Rock. Finally, the Rock has come back to Thrace…

REASONS TO GO: The Rock is more cut than ever! Some nifty battlefield sequences. McShane and Sewell are entertaining.

REASONS TO STAY: Predictable. Some of the dialogue is a bit creaky.

FAMILY VALUES:  Battle violence, occasional expletives, some disturbing images and brief sexuality.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: According to Johnson, his fake beard in the film is made of yak testicle hair.

CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/12/14: Rotten Tomatoes: 62% positive reviews. Metacritic: 47/100.

COMPARISON SHOPPING: Clash of the Titans

FINAL RATING: 6/10

NEXT: Films for Foodies begins!

New Releases for the Week of July 25, 2014

HERCULES

(MGM/Paramount) Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, John Hurt, Rufus Sewell, Ingrid Bolso Berdal, Joseph Fiennes, Peter Mullan, Rebecca Ferguson. Directed by Brett Ratner

Hercules the legend is also Hercules the man and the man and the legend don’t always coexist well. Haunted by the sins of his past, Hercules the man has turned his back on Hercules the legend and become a mercenary, using his reputation to intimidate those who oppose those who hire him. When the good King of Thrace and his daughter beg for help against an implacable warlord, Hercules finds that in order for justice to triumph he must once more shoulder the mantle of hero and let him embrace his legend – and perhaps at last put to bed the ghosts that haunt him. Assuming he survives, of course. Based on the revisionist take on the Hercules myth Radical Studios graphic novel.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard, 3D, IMAX 3D (opens Thursday)

Genre: Swords and Sandals

Rating: PG-13 (for epic battle sequences, violence, suggestive comments, brief strong language and partial nudity)

A Most Wanted Man

(Roadside Attractions) Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams. The arrival of a half-dead Chechen man on the run from mysterious forces brings the attention of the German secret service. They enlist an idealistic lawyer and a banker to discover what’s going on, with a top-ranked spy willing to go to any lengths to discover the truth, even if it means innocent lives. Based on a novel by master spy novelist John Le Carré.

See the trailer and clips here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Spy Thriller

Rating: R (for language)

And So It Goes

(Clarius) Michael Douglas, Diane Keaton, Frankie Valli, Frances Sternhagen. Oren Little has everything all mapped out. He’s going to sell one last house, retire from real estate and live a quiet life undisturbed by people. When his son drops off a nine-year-old granddaughter he never knew he had, his plans are thrown into chaos. Completely unprepared and ill-qualified to be a caregiver to a child, he at first foists the girl off on his extremely tolerant and patient neighbor but gradually he learns that being an obnoxious, curmudgeonly loner isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

See the trailer, clips, interviews and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romance

Rating: PG-13 (for some sexual references and drug elements)

The Fluffy Movie

(Open Road) Gabriel Iglesias, Jacqueline Obradors, Ron White, Tommy Chong. Iglesias went from a contestant on Last Comic Standing to being kicked out of that competition for violating the competition’s rules for calling home and going on to become a cultural phenomenon. The performance footage here is taken from his Unity Through Laughter tour which spanned 23 countries and sold out nearly everywhere.

 

See the trailer, clips and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Stand-Up Comedy Concert

Rating: PG-13 (for suggestive material and sexual references)

Kick

(UTV) Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Randeep Hooda. When a young woman finally figures out that her fiancée who lives for thrills is just not responsible enough for marriage, she calls things off. She tells the story of her previous engagement to a new prospective suitor who happens to be a police inspector. He also happens to be chasing her ex who has become a notorious thief who is giving all his ill-gotten gains away to charities for children. Seems like kind of an extreme way to win your lover back.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Bollywood Action

Rating: NR

Lucy

(Universal) Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Min-sik Choi, Analeigh Tipton. A young woman is caught up in forces beyond her control as ruthless drug smugglers put a bag of a revolutionary new drug in her tummy in order to smuggle it to the United States. The bag starts to leak and the drug enhances her brain to allow her to use 100% of it. She begins to change into something more than human, which not only makes her a danger to the drug smugglers but potentially to the whole human race as well.

See the trailer, interviews, featurettes, clips and B-roll video here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard (opens Thursday)

Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller

Rating: R (for strong violence, disturbing images, and sexuality)

She’s Dating the Gangster

(Star Cinema) Kathryn Bernardo, Daniel Padilla, Sofia Andres, Khalil Ramos. A Filipino teen and a rebellious friend start up a false romance in order to spite his ex-girlfriend. However, their feelings begin to get deeper and the relationship shows signs of growing into something greater, but the boy may be a part of a vicious Manila gang.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Romantic Comedy

Rating: NR

Willow Creek

(IFC) Alexie Gilmore, Bryce Johnson, Peter Jason, Tom Yamarone. A Bigfoot enthusiast drags his long-suffering girlfriend to the place where the iconic Patterson-Gimlin film was shot years before to try and catch footage of his own. He gets a lot more than he bargained for and the couple discover the meaning to their horror of the term “forest bride.” A send-up of found footage horror films by comedian and director Bobcat Goldthwaite.

See the trailer here.

For more on the movie this is the website.

Release formats: Standard

Genre: Horror Comedy

Rating: NR

The Escapist

No cage will hold Frank Perry.

(IFC) Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Liam Cunningham, Dominic Cooper, Seu Jorge, Damian Lewis, Steven Mackintosh, Ned Dennehy. Directed by Rupert Wyatt

Those who are imprisoned for life at some point become resigned to their lot in life, finding a way to come to terms with their situation. It becomes necessary to find a way to fit into the vicious prison society, making no waves and calling as little attention to themselves as possible. It is a means of survival for those who can find no other way.

Frank Perry (Cox) is such a man, in a British prison for the rest of his life. He exists day to day within his own routine, allying himself neither with the Screws nor with the Cons, a prison gang led by the reptilian Rizza (Lewis) whose brother Tony (Mackintosh) is a despicable, heartless monster who takes an unhealthy interest in Lacey (Cooper), a newly arrived inmate convicted of a white collar crime who becomes Frank’s new cellmate.

Frank has bigger problems than that however. He receives a letter from his wife informing him that his daughter has overdosed and is in critical condition. He rises from the fog he lives in, his instincts as a father driving him to be by his stricken daughter’s side. The only way he can do that is to escape.

He gathers with him a crew of the silent and violent Lenny (Fiennes), the drug concoctor Viv Batista (Jorge), the smart and brutally efficient Brodie (Cunningham) and somewhat accidentally, Lacey. However, the machinations of Rizza and Tony put Frank’s plans at risk, leading to an act of violence which will change the entire outcome of the prison break.

It’s a very simple concept and really, this little bit gives you all the plot you need to know. The mark of a good movie is that it makes the most use of a very little. The result is neither boring nor standard.

First-time director (and co-writer) Wyatt tells the back story and the escape concurrently as parallel arcs, letting them weave through each other in such a way that the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts. It’s very effectively done, increasing the dramatic power of the ending nicely.

Cox is perfect for the role of the cynical con, keeping his head down in an environment that is without pity or morality. It is Darwin taken to its logical but remorseless extreme and Cox’s Frank Perry fits in like a chameleon, surviving under the radar. Frank has the instincts of a survivor; it’s not that he isn’t tough when he needs to be but he’s smart enough to realize that his toughness isn’t going to get him through. All that changes when his daughter’s life is on the brink and his instincts as a father take over. It’s a powerful transformation and Cox pulls it off nicely.

In fact, the supporting roles are nicely drawn up and are somewhat more complete than usual, a refreshing and admirable movie experience. Fiennes is particularly a revelation, having very little dialogue but pulling off a persona very different than his most prominent role as William Shakespeare.

The prison environment depicted is realistic; less the high-tech environments depicted in television shows like “Prison Break” and “Oz” and more along the lines of the kind of slammer you’d find in The Shawshank Redemption. It isn’t pretty, but then you wouldn’t expect it would be.

This isn’t a movie for the faint of heart, nor is it one for those who like having their stories spoon fed to them. It requires a little adventurousness from the viewer and a little bit of faith that the payoff will be worth the ride, and so it is. The Escapist doesn’t reinvent the prison break movie but it certainly delivers a new take on it, and on that basis alone is worth checking out.

WHY RENT THIS: Cox delivers a powerful performance as a man moved to desperate acts. The parallel storytelling lends dramatic punch to the climax.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The depiction of prison life may be too realistic for some.

FAMILY VALUES: There is plenty of prison brutality, violence, and sexual assault, enough to make this for mature audiences only.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The part of Frank Perry was written specifically for Brian Cox.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Shrek Forever After

The Darwin Awards

It's not so much flying as falling with style...

(MGM/Bauer Martinez) Joseph Fiennes, Winona Ryder, Wilmer Valderrama, David Arquette, Juliette Lewis, Nora Dunn, Lukas Haas, Tim Blake Nelson, Chris Penn, Julianna Margulies, Alessandro Nivola, D.B. Sweeney, Kevin Dunn, Ty Burrell. Directed by Finn Taylor

The human race numbers nearly seven billion people. That’s a lot of variety in the gene pool. That also means there are a lot of people whose genes the human race would be better off without; sometimes they demonstrate this in the method in which they remove themselves from said gene pool.

Michael Burrows (Fiennes) is a police detective in San Francisco with a brilliant mind. In true Sherlock Holmes-like fashion he is able to observe the smallest details in order to create a profile of the criminals he is investigating. Unfortunately, he does have a slight hang-up; he has a phobia about the sight of blood. It causes him to faint. In that particular line of work, this can be a liability.

This comes to pass when he, through brilliant deductive work, manages to corner the North Beach serial killer (Nelson). However, when blood is shed, Burrows passes out and the killer gets away. He loses his job because of it.

Burrows is a methodical and logical sort, so he doesn’t panic. He knows that his gifts would be of great use in other industries. He has also developed a fascination for the recipients of the Darwin Awards – people who die in foolish and bizarre manners, so-named because those who cash out in these manners have failed the basic law of evolution: survival of the fittest. He realizes that the insurance companies pay millions out to survivors of these people and that his expertise might be useful in not only determining the difference between legitimate accidents and Darwin Award candidates, but also in pinpointing people who exhibit the kind of behavior that would make them susceptible to that kind of demise. 

He interviews at a large insurance company to pitch them his skills. At first, the executive (Kevin Dunn) who is interviewing him is skeptical but when Burrows makes some observations of the executive that are painfully close to home based on almost no information, the executive changes his tune. He pairs Burrows with Siri Taylor (Ryder), an investigator who specializes in bizarre cases.

She is none too thrilled to have a new partner, but has to admit grudgingly that Burrows is good at what he does when he figures out that what appears to be an industrial accident when a vending machine falls on a hapless office worker (Burrell) is actually a result of that worker over-balancing the machine in violation of the warning plainly visible on it.

As they travel from city to city, Taylor is at first a bit put off by the fastidious Burrows’ quirks and mannerisms, and his almost total lack of social skills. However, as she begins to see the man behind the mannerisms, she grows softer towards him, especially as he saves the insurance company millions. However, Burrows has some unfinished business to take care of; a serial killer in San Francisco with whom Burrows must face down one last time.

I have to admit liking the concept for The Darwin Awards a great deal. The execution is another matter. Director Taylor stages the death sequences well enough and there is some morbid humor in them, but they aren’t enough to carry the movie. Fiennes isn’t a bad actor – he has shown some chops in Shakespeare in Love but he is very low-key, which works to a certain extent here but at times he is too deadpan. He could benefit from an infusion of a little Nicolas Cage.

Ryder is a fine actress as well, but the chemistry between her and Fiennes isn’t really there. Their romance isn’t really convincing and in all honesty, I think the plot could have done without it. It’s a cliché that brings things down a little bit.

One of the conceits used in the movie is that Burrows is being followed around by a documentary filmmaker (Valderrama) who is using the footage (starting when Burrows was a police officer and carrying over to his new job) for a graduate thesis. There are moments when the movie benefits from it, but the filmmakers try too hard to integrate the documentarian into the action, especially joking how he is unwilling to help when someone is in trouble, even refusing to dial 911 when the serial killer is cornered. That whole component could have been done better, and have still been funny.

Black comedies are notoriously difficult to pull off. The filmmakers have to walk a very thin line between funny and grim, and sometimes it pays off – and other times it doesn’t. There are moments that make The Darwin Awards worth a look, but too often I found myself wishing the filmmakers had come up with a better film.

WHY RENT THIS: The premise is mightily intriguing. Some of the death scenes are cleverly staged.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Fiennes’ character gets a little bit too over-the-top with the quirkiness. Deadpan humor gets to be so deadpan as to be un-funny.

FAMILY VALUES: There are some squirm-inducing death scenes, a little bit of drug usage and sexuality as well as a fair amount of blue language, all enough to make this unsuitable for family viewing.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: “Mythbusters” hosts Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage appear as surplus store salesmen to the rocket car driver; in the first episode of the show, they dealt with this very urban myth.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 4/10

TOMORROW: The Amateurs