Sex and Death 101 - a hellishly long recap

I've been putting this one off for a while. Probably because I liked this movie and it's harder to recap something you actually liked. As a vehicle for Simon Baker to diversify, well, I'm not sure that it works. But then again it looks like he's having such a lark doing this, you feel like saying hey, let him have this one.  

As the movie opens, we’re shown a room that looks like a typical holywood representation of a post-mortem spiritual retreat. Three men in grey suits gather round a strange door-like device set in the wall that has just spewed out a number of flash cards. 

pick a card, any card, no not that one, the other one

One card in particular seems to interest them (I'm still thinking they're auditors of souls or something but no, they turn out to be extremely corporeal beings later on). "Who the hell is Roderick Blank?" says a Patton Oswalt shaped agent. "That would be me" says Simon Baker, whilst penciling in Narrator under Work Experience in his CV. We immediately cut to Patrick Jayne Roderick Blank prancing (there's a lot of prancing in this movie) along a street that looks suspiciously like a movie set. We follow him as he walks along, beaming at everyone, and then out of nowhere we're struck down by a huge wave of exposition that takes us completely unawares.

#Fact - Richard has a secretary called Trixie who is a lesbian.

#Fact - Richard is soon to be married.

#Fact - there's a femme (non)fatale by the name of Death Nell quietly terrorizing  the city (she doesn't kills her victims, merely puts them in a coma by injecting them with coma serum) (no really, that's a thing). 

#Fact – His fiancée is one Fiona Wormwood who he seems to be settling for because she's clearly not a nice person.

#Fact - he's a big shot at a fast food chain called Swallows (oh yes, it goes there, just you wait for that juxtaposition).

So while all this is going on Richard is on the phone with Trixie who's going through his emails. He's about to sign off when she starts reading the last one. It's a list of names and she at first assumes it's a list of invitees to the wedding but then it turns out it's a bunch of girls’ names. As she starts reading it out to Roderick, each name turns out to be a girl he's boinked in the past and listed in chronological order. And it turns out the list doesn't end with Ms Wormwood-soon-to-be-Blank, in fact she's just number 29. The list passes her and ends at a giddying and possibly STD inducing 101. Naturally Roderick is intrigued at the thought of possibly passing up 72 lays for the sake of nuptial bliss. On the other hand,  the list is probably a hoax put together by his friends but before he can process anything further than the next two names after Fiona's, he's ‘kidnapped’ and dragged off to his bachelor party. 

look at some of these names, who the heck is called owlglasses?

At the party he’s clearly phoning it in because c’mon, he's still obsessing about the trail of tail he might be missing out on should he get hitched. His friend Zack advises him to stop looking for a way out of the marriage and just make it through the party, get married and live subarbanly ever after.  Towards the end of the party Roderick dragged off to be locked into a room for the traditional 'grand finale' with the stripper.  Neither of them actually plan on following through on tradition but somehow something leads to one thing  and he ends up having accidental sex with her. "Accidental sex?" you ask, "What, she slipped and fell on his dick?". "Yes" I reply, "that's exactly what happened". 

what, you though i was kidding? that's literally what happens

During this up and down process he finds out that her real name is Carlotta Valdez (a.k.a. number 30 on the list) and boom! he realizes the list may be on the money after all.

The movie now takes a break to show us Death Nell luring her next victim - a guy who runs a newspaper stand and likes to dabble in a little bit of voyeurism on the side. Our Nell seems to take her pickings from the not so gentlemanly sort. She’s played by Wynona Ryder and I wonder whether you could also summon her by saying “Death Nell” three times.

you'd have though a peeping tom would pick a less conspicuous costume

The day following his sexual enlightenment, Roderick is trying to break it off with Fiona. She obviously doesn't take it well and he relents and patches things up. But at this very moment, he notices an advertisement in the paper - one stating that a certain centerfold by the name of Cynthia Rose is having an autograph signing session later on in the day. (Is this an actual thing, where centerfolds sign pinups?) And would you believe it, Cynthia Rose is number 31 on the list. After sending off a pacified Fiona to her bachelorette spa party, he goes off to the magazine signing thing and manages to rescue Cynthia from a stampeding nerd-herd. They proceed to hang out for the rest of the day (no sexy times yet) and after learning that he's about to get married Cynthia asks him to do her a favour and she seals the deal by saying "don't worry, it'll end in sex".

yeah, that's a deal maker alright

Roderick obviously agrees to this deal and against the advice of Trixie, who seems to play the buddy role to Roderick in the movie, goes off to execute said favour - which turns out be dinner and a sleepover at her father's mansion while playing the part of 'presentable man' in front of daddy. Here, the movie decides to borrow a page from the sickly inappropriate school of drama and accomplishes a predictable and painful situation involving people sneaking around in the night trying to have sex while a leprous grandmother sleeps in an adjoining room. You know what happens; I’m not even going to go there. I don't like what you did there movie, you made me sad, and I refuse to talk about it. Suffice to say that our centerfold was named after her (suddenly deceased) grandmother. I also lament the fact that Simon Baker is not convincing as a Stiffleresque figure and the physical comedy just doesn't work. Look, let's just forget this whole scene and move on.

Roderick comes home to find Fiona in the process of leaving him in the hope that he will stop her. (Yes, really.) He however doesn't and she leaves. Cue the agents in grey descending in on him, rendering him unconscious and whisking him away to the white room. They introduce themselves as Alpha, Beta and Patton Oswalt (well, okay, Fred) and they then proceed to tell him about an oracular computer and how it sent out random email to lots of people. In pretty much everyone’s case, it just sent out a date - the date of their death - but in Roderick's case it decided to send him a different sort of list; a list of all the women he has and ever would have sex with. They try to convince him to keep mum about the whole thing, tell him that breaking it off with Fiona was the way to go and tell him to go forth and fornicate.  BUT, they say, forget about the list – burn it, bury it – but do not let it dictate the terms of copulation.

Roderick of course ignores all the advice except the serial sex part and goes out to bed his way down the list. I can almost forgive the #31 debacle for it allowed a brief grin inducing scene with regard to #32 where he scrutinizes her passport pre-penetration to verify her identity.  The movie is perplexing because one minute it acts somewhat intelligently and the next second it goes for obvious gut wrenching pleas for laughter like this:

i did warn you that this would happen

One night while at a club having drinks with his office mates a celebrity lesbian couple disturbingly named Bambi and Thumper walk in. 

with names like that i'd have expected more fur and less wings

Trixie of course is highly excited and primps up to go get their autograph but the woddland wenches have eyes only for Roderick for sure enough they're next on the list. Incidentally, would a gay couple's ideal threesome be with a straight person from the opposite sex? But then again three people from the same sex  and sexual inclination would seem a bit excessive. Anyway, i digress.  Things go interestingly at first, as you would expect, but then it gets a bit freaky - I can’t possibly describe everything that happens so here’s a blurry picture, now leave me alone, there are internal conflicts I need to deal with right about now.

at least be grateful that i spared you the flimsy boxers

 Meanwhile Death Nell has picked another victim and whaddaya know, booked a room adjoining the room being violated by Roderick and the non-Disney-endorsed duo. Her victim however falls to his death before she can render him comatose and Roderick’s and Nell’s paths almost cross when he crawls onto her balcony during his escape from the loco lesbians. This last escapade convinces Roderick that the list is a bad idea and with Trixie’s moral support he buries it in his back yard. But he implores her to let him have just one more name and she compromises by telling him that it’s a “Dr. M-i-r…”

look, you try taking screencaps when people wont stop moving

Roderick, making an effort to move on, is once again sidetracked when he strikes up a friendship with an ex-veterinarian who seems to be lusted after by the entire local pet owning male population. Her name happens to be Dr. Miranda, obviously she must be the "Dr. M" from the list. But he takes it slow, they become quite pally and he settles down to enjoy the (what he thinks is a) romance without rushing the sex. Unfortunately Dr. M doesn’t seem to be so into either a romance or any bandying of privates (insert joke about  a  veterinarian who doesn't want to bone). Frustrated at being repeatedly friend zoned, he finally gives in and digs up the list to affirm that she is indeed next and finds that the next name up is actually M-i-r-abella. Since he really cares about this Miranda chick he tries to beat the list. He even goes back to the agency for help, but Alpha tells him firmly to stop being a ninny and that it’s never going to happen. It also gives Patton Oswalt a chance to use the words “intercourse buffet” and “blowjob on a stick”. While this discourse is going on, the agents suddenly get alerted to the fact that Death Nell has taken down a whole fraternity in Fresno. Apparently when a serial killer (or non-killer) hits the double digits they call in the Men in Grey. 

Later on, in a series of events too blahworthy to set down, Miranda dies in a freak accident.  Roderick is distraught and for a brief moment it looks like he is going to defile a corpse just to break the predictions of the list but thankfully he gets distracted by something shiny (no, i'm not kidding - look, I can't make this shit up) and walks out to immediately find comfort in the arms of Dr. Mirabella Stone, who works as a plot contrivance  at the same hospital. 

and she's not even a pathologist from what i can tell, so why is she lurking outside the morgue? 

After the brief and boring Miranda interlude, Roderick throws caution - and his pants-  to the wind and ventures forth on a salacious spree. I’ll spare you the details. Suffice to say that the movie stays true to all possible clichés and allows the list to include among other things a midget, a homeless person and a man. Meanwhile, the authorities find out Death Nell’s real name (she’d left her driver’s license behind at the scene of a crime) and her face and name are plastered all over the TV screens. Roderick, on seeing the news, realizes to his horror that she’s the last name on his list – he’s going to die at the hands of Death Nell! (yes, the fact that her victims don’t die is ignored from hereon.) He runs off to the agency to be told that they’re planning a coup and as soon as the oracular computer computes Death Nell’s exact location - which it’s bound to do in a few weeks – they’ll close in on her and he will be safe. So the same people who earlier told him that there was no defying the list are now trying to help him do so. Tsk Tsk, movie, for shame.

So all Roderick has to do is hold off from having sex with the 20 women who stand between him and Death Nell. The movie makes this out to be a Herculean task. If you ask me, having sex with 20 different women within the space of 2 weeks would be the difficult thing, not the other way around. But looks like Roderick needs to distract himself lest he slip and mistakenly has sex with someone so he takes up a few hobbies, cycling being one. It’s during one of these cycling trips that he meets with a pothole related accident, is rescued by a bus containing a virginal bible group who then proceed to take turns forcing themselves on a supine Roderick for some voluntary deflowering. The bus contained 19 girls, not 20, so for a minute Roderick is jubilant - till he remembered the lady bus driver who also decided to cut herself in on the deal. So in one fell swoop the number of obstacles between him and Death Nell went from 20 to zero. (The movie doesn’t explain how on earth one man is able to have sex 20 times in quick succession. The movie takes poetic license to a whole new level in order to move the plot along.)

 it's not like they were catholic schoolgirls. just a uniform  wearing bible group, so that's okay then

Okay, we’re almost done here. The supercomputer finally pinpoints a location and the agents go in and take position, awaiting Nell’s arrival. Roderick is told to stay put, but he’s tired of all this having his life path decided for him business and he sets out to meet his maker (or in this case Nell) head on. Unable to get into her hotel, he walks into a nearby diner only to run into Nell, temporarily off the clock. They strike up a conversation, and he volunteers to be his next victim. They get along quite well and he professes an admiration for her poetry (she writes little couplets at each crime scene). Asked why she does what she does, she tells him her story.  Apparently she was in an abusive relationship, married to this sadist who made her play dress-up and then well, you know the rest. Then one day, she’s set free; he slips on a pencil and erm, dies (there’s a whole lot of death by slipping in this movie) and she goes off on a pilgrimage to rid the world of perverts, one prick at a time.

After they each share their story, they realize that they’re both tired of being where they are and who they are.  So, somewhat predictably at this point, they make a coma pact. The nicely orchestrated final scene shows them popping the pills in each other’s mouth and settling under the sheets below a spray painted “The End”.

Of course that’s not the final scene, the final scene is when we are shown that they seem to have woken up, (and pretty quickly too since they haven’t aged a bit) got married, had a kid and are in the midst of living happily ever after. Interspersed with these scenes of domestic tranquility is a  clip of the coma victims waking up, one by one. So the world’s population of sex offenders is once more replete. In closing (well, almost) we are also shown two capsules on their nightstand implying that they didn't take the coma-inducing-pills after all BUT the movie clearly shows them taking something in the earlier scene (see above). So did they take them and spit them out again? Goddamnit movie, why must you contradict yourself so?

sigh. here's another picture. now lets pretend i wrapped this up

One last thing. Remember I said I liked this movie? Well, contrary to the tone of this recap, I actually did. It wasn't an amazing movie, but it did try to steer away from the formulaic plot. Of course it didn't do a very good job of it, but still i'd like to give it points for trying. Also, there was this to be happy about:

yup. there's always this to fall back on.