Movie of the Week: Finders Keepers

Alexa: Being from North Carolina, I actually remember hearing about the case featured in “Finders Keepers” long before watching the documentary. But I still wasn’t prepared for all the story’s strange twists and turns, of which there are many. I can’t really wrap my head around wanting to keep someone else’s severed leg, no matter how much attention it might garner, but Shannon’s claim does raise some legitimately interesting legal questions. And while the film does spend a lot of time dwelling on just how bizarre this dispute is, it also delves deeper into unexpectedly insightful territory. Ultimately the movie is less about the novelty of the case than it is about the two men at the center of it and what motivates them. They are weirdly sympathetic characters (ultimately John more so than Shannon) and the filmmakers take great care not to belittle their beliefs. Both are driven by their fathers in a sense - John to preserve his late father’s memory and Shannon to obtain the attention his father never gave him. I wasn’t prepared to become so emotionally invested in their unusual journey, but “Finders Keepers” is a better film for balancing John’s and Shannon’s oddities with their humanity.

Joel: Man, some people are weird aren’t they? What we have here is something that should have been a non-story, or at the very least a bizarre human interest piece that got one segment of coverage on the local news. Instead, this was apparently an incident that required years of back and forth, tons of coverage in the paper, on television and on the radio, as well as at least one reality show and a nationally syndicated courtroom tv show to come in and try and resolve this issue. There’s nobody in this movie that comes across looking like the “normal” one. John wanted to hang on to his amputated foot so that he could make a memorial out of it, and Shannon saw this while situation as a ticket to the big time. It didn’t help that the movie really leaned into the “country hick” aspects of the story by subtitling anyone who had an accent, but the whole situation is portrayed as something that could only happen in a tiny backwater town.

Still, even though the movie does like to marvel at the bizarre situation and the people involved, there’s something weirdly endearing about the whole thing. John’s story has its own complete redemption arc, one that sees him estranged from his family and living under a bridge at one point. We learn about how the events in the movie have unexpectedly pushed him toward pulling his life back together. When you hear the premise of the movie you don’t think it’s one that will involve a heartwarming family reunion over a memorial day weekend cookout, but it’s there in the end.

Likewise, Shannon is an interesting dude. If there’s a villian in the movie, it’s probably him. If any other person had been the one to find the leg it would have probably been returned to John without question or maybe just thrown away. It’s Shannon’s desire to turn this random find into his personal identity that is the driving force of the movie. On one hand, Shannon’s desire to be a famous TV star is a sympathetic one. The dream of being famous is one that most people think about at one point or another. It’s one of the most popular desires in the country and it’s one with no clear path to get there. Still if there’s a clear incorrect path, Shannon seems to have found that. I mean, I guess his actions involving the foot got him on TV at least twice and got this movie made about him, but it’s actually sad to see Shannon getting frustrated with the reality show for making him look bad, and never making the connection that he’s been doing the same thing to himself this whole time.

The movie unfolds in such a bizarre way. You hear what the movie’s about and think, “There’s no way that can keep my interest for an entire movie” but here we are, ninety minutes later, and this weird, fascinating story of weird, fascinating people kept me interested the whole time. I guess if there’s one lesson to be taken from this movie, it’s that if you ever find yourself in Maiden, North Carolina, maybe don’t eat lunch at the local Hardees.

Chris: Bizarre doesn’t do this documentary justice. Nobody really comes off all that well although, because of the events that transpire, John ends up getting clean and mends the bridge between himself and his family so some good did come of this. However, there is no redemption story for Shannon who is desperately trying to be the smartest person in the room and believes the way to accomplish that is to just tell everyone that it’s true. I will say that this movie did force me to really rack my brain over what is legally the right movie in this situation. Ultimately, I’ll give Judge Mathis the credit for coming up with a reasonable solution because, yes, technically Shannon owns the smoker and everything within it after the purchase but still, it’s the man’s leg.

Jason: I have lived in North Carolina for most of my life. As such, I am in no way surprised by the events that transpire in this documentary. It makes me laugh that some of the dialog needed to be captioned for the general masses. This is the kind of crazy nonsense that could only happen in the good ol’ US of A. First off, who wants to keep an amputated limb? Secondly, Shannon is a prime example of the horrors of a purely capitalist society. His insistence that not only is the leg his legal property, but that he only wants it to use it to gain money and fame is an embodiment of ‘Murcia mentality. His story is truly sad. The highlight of his life was getting mobbed by cameramen after losing a television court case. How sad is he? On the other hand, John’s story, while sad, isn’t pathetic. At least his family was brought together through the whole ordeal.

Documentaries often have a slant. They will play up a certain opinion about the topic as part of the story telling. This one certainly does that making one side sympathetic and the other villainous but just based on Shannon’s interviews and actions, it is hard to think that it could have been presented any other way.

Really, all I have to say is: Keep it classy, North Carolina.