FINDERS KEEPERS (2015) – The Review

How can anyone argue with the rules of our childhood? Finder’s keepers is as sacred an adolescent law of survival as calling shotgun of implementing the infamous triple dog dare. But, what happens when we employ these tactics in adult life? One possible eventuality plays out in real life as the subject matter of a new documentary from Bryan Carberry and J. Clay Tweel.

FINDER’S KEEPERS follows the antics of two men, John Wood and Shannon Whisnant. John Wood lost his leg in a small plane crash that killed his father. Shannon Whisnant is an entrepreneurial picker who purchases the contents of a storage unit at an auction and discovers John Wood’s amputated leg inside a smoker grill within the storage unit he purchased.

You may be asking “how does something like this transpire?” Believe it or not, it all makes sense once the film explains the circumstances, but none of that changes the fact that truth is so often stranger than fiction and some real people are far better characters than can be written. John and Shannon are similar in ways, but are essentially polar opposites when it comes to how they view the world.

The filmmakers who brought us this film may have seen a quirky diamond in the rough, but FINDER’S KEEPERS does manage to tell an interesting story of human desires, delving into what makes these two curious characters tick. On the surface, the film feels like something hosted by Maury Povich or Jerry Springer, with absurdly eccentric characters quarreling over the silliest or strangest of squabbles. However, as the film progresses, the underlying human drama emerges, peeking its head out from behind the cantankerous curtains that separate these two men, revealing some raw emotion of illustrates the true fragility of human dreams and passion.

FINDER’S KEEPERS is not perfect. Few, if any films truly are, but in this case, it’s misleading. In all fairness and full disclosure, I’ll freely admit it took me two viewing to appreciate this film. Upon my first experience, I found the film to be funny and enjoyable, if not even interesting on a tabloid level. The laughter continued, and then a bit less, then a bit less, and I found the level of interest I had in the film was waning and I was growing bored. This was not a good sign.

Then, as any decent critic should at least consider doing, I gave the film a second chance. Still not perfect, but with this second viewing is when all the undercurrents of humanity poked through the surface sludge of silly sensationalistic slander. FINDERS KEEPERS was actually addressing the inner dreamer in all of us, even if we don’t look or talk or behave like these two men, it’s still essentially our story. There is something desired, but it’s just out of reach, despite of perseverance.

As Shrek would say, “people are like onions.” This is true, and not just in that some people stink. People have layers, many layers and these layers are not all the same. There’s not always a pearl within, but the process of peeling away the outer, decaying layers serves to reveal the true self. FINDERS KEEPERS does this for John and Shannon, but in two distinctly different directions.

John Wood is a man whose had a long, hard run of bad luck and poor choices he now lives with while trying to reconcile. He may have began his life in the luxury of a wealthy household, but for better or worse, it’s the choices we make that define us… FINDERS KEEPERS is a film about those choices.

While the film does become somewhat repetitive in its content, it’s a short feature film, running a pleasantly well-paced 82 minutes. While the intent, I believe, is to stay impartial, the truth of the matter is that we rarely ever feel sympathy for Shannon. We find ourselves empathetic for both characters, but ultimately Shannon is the heel, the villain, the antagonist. John, on the other hand, is clearly the protagonist, made out as the victim and showcased as the more likable character, despite his flaws.

The problem with Shannon is that he’s not an easy guy to like, even if we find a bit of ourselves in his persona, a bit of that dreamer or and rebel combined. FINDERS KEEPERS fails to compel its audience into caring much about its central characters, but it does raise some interesting philosophical questions, such as… if I buy a grill at an auction and find a human body part inside, do I retain the rights to that body part as goods purchased, or does the body parts’ owner retain the right to claim it back?

Something to think about.

Overall Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars