Some would say that writer / director Daniel Waters, who has created this near masterpiece ‘Sex and Death 101’, career ended when he wrote the screenplay for the abominable ‘Demolition Man’. Of course that is if you think ‘Demolition Man’ is abominable. I for one DO NOT! I loved ‘Demolition Man’ which usually gets me greeted with derision and vitriol, but I don’t care. I used to consider it a guilty pleasure, but no more. ‘Demolition Man’ is just a flat out pleasure, but I can’t get into why since this isn’t a Demolition Man review. It apparently ruined Daniel Waters’s career though as he wouldn’t do much of anything for the next 15 years except for some indy film called ‘Happy Campers’. But Mr. Waters has returned with this film examining modern life and love with ‘Sex and Death 101’ which I thought was fantastic but did kind of cop out on us in the end.

Simon Baker plays the role Roderick Blank, a man who truly has it all. He’s great looking, drives a Jaguar convertible, has the always movie ubiquitous ‘advertising’ job, and has a spectacular fiancée in the beautiful Fiona (Julie Bowen). Simon’s life takes a sudden turn while being read e-mails from his trusted lesbian office assistant Trixie (Mindy Cohn – yes, from the facts of life and looking EXACTLY the same). The last of the e-mails contains a list of 101 women, the first 29 of which are women that Roderick has slept with, the other 73 being women Roderick WILL sleep with. How did this happen? Well there is a machine managed by the mysterious Alpha (Robert Wisdom) who along with his underlings Beta (Tanc Sade) and the delightfully comical Fred (Patton Oswalt) who form a super secret government agency. This Machine is oracle-esque in that with 100% certainty it can tell the future. How it came to be is anybody's guess, but this machine sent out a bunch of emails one day and Roderick was a recipient. Roderick WAS ready to settle down until he observed that number 32 on the list is playmate Miss June or something. Despite the dire warnings of Mister Alpha, Roderick casts aside his fiancée and gets down to the business of fulfilling the list.

Meanwhile there is a femme fatale floating around the city going by the title of Death Nell (Wynona Rider) who has put over a dozen men in a coma with the lure of easy sex and apocalyptic poetry. By now both of these individuals are completely out of control, and with Roderick now completely depressed, he tries ditch the list to find true love in the lovely veterinarian Miranda (Leslie Bibb) who seems to only want to be friends, while Nell sets about raising her victim total daily. Eventually, since we have been introduced to these characters, fate must intervene somehow allowing them to cross paths and fulfill both of their prophecies as foretold by the ‘Machine’.

I suppose you could call ‘Sex and Death 101’ a romantic comedy though there wasn’t a lot of romance in this thing, but it certainly had more than its fair share of comedy. A nice combination of over-the-top slapstick humor combined with the subtle comedy that flows within the narrative, Waters has crafted a film which is so unapologetically sexist that if one takes this thing seriously they could possibly be majorly offended. Though I wasn’t offended, I was probably a little bit embarrassed by Waters’ descriptions of how men generally truly think and behave. Or at least how we would behave if we all looked like Simon Baker, had a krazy dope ride and was placed in the situation he was placed in I suppose. In a role the Australian actor was born to play Simon Baker handles Roderick Blank, who is really a simple everyman, quite deftly. I’m sure it helps to have wavy blond hair and an ever-present ‘I can’t believe I'm this damn charming’ grin but it does help sell the Roderick Blank as a man who you can honestly believe is able to score with roughly 80 women, and one dude, in the course of ninety minutes.

As far as Wynona Rider and her Death Nell character there really isn’t much to tell. I believe there was Internet hubbub about a sex scene between Rider and Baker which Rider shows some skin, and I know there’s a group of you out there who have been wanting see Wynona’s boobies for a while now but the scene in question was shooting star brief and certainly not worth the price of admission if that’s what you want to see. You would probably be better off just trying to meet Wynona Rider and becoming her boyfriend than waiting for a glorious nude scene. There were plenty other naked women though – if you like that kind of thing. Nonetheless Rider's Death Nell was odd plot device that didn’t have much to do with the overall narrative except to provide us with an easy way out at the end and make Roderick Blank a more likable person. I liked the tone the movie was taking before hand with the ending coming off as somewhat disingenuous.

With the smart script and the fine performances, especially those turned in by Leslie Bibb, who in a sea of women in her business who are pretty with blonde hair and blue eyes, is a very gifted actress and is great in everything I see her in, Patton Oswalt who manages to truly supply comic relief in a comic movie and Robert Wisdom as the always calming Alpha, ‘Sex and Death 101’ was a very good comedy just slightly undone by a forced ending that I’m sure made some test audience happy, but not me.