The most interesting aspect of Mick McCleery's low-budget The Altruist is its Jack Kevorkian premise of uniting suicidal people with serial killers. It's a fricking brilliant concept. So if you've seen the trailer, read the DVD cover, or clicked on the official website or the IMDB entry, you've experienced the highlight with its tag line: Every year in the United States 30,000 people commit murder. In that same time 60,000 people commit suicide. Wouldn't it be great if we could get these people together? Weird enough to attract my attention, the central premise did hook me into checking out the movie and watching the entire film. I just wish the script was more interesting and that the acting was more convincing. Dark comedies are a personal favorite; they're just really difficult to execute successfully, especially with a relatively inexperienced cast.

Billy Franks (who previously starred in McCleery's Track 16 and Coming to Save America) does a credible job carrying the film despite the thin script. McCleery too often resorts to sophomoric "humor" by having his lead character lace his dialogue with more F-bombs than Joe Pesci in a Scorsese project. While a few selective epithets coming from the altruistic head of the non-profit company would provide some chuckles, why have him utter the bombs in every fucking sentence?

Immediately following the opening credits that again include a statement of the premise, we see a depressed man (Larry Schneider Jr. as Tom Taylor) waiting downstairs for his all-too-willing executioner. Things go awry when the killer decides to take out Tom's wife, and the resulting double homicide is all over the local news.

This doesn't suit the purposes of Terminal Assist, an altruistic service that strives to hook up terminally ill people with low-life hit men that enjoy killing. Founder Nick Cammarano (Franks) has established a working relationship with local police authorities, as long as they don't kill anyone living in the same community. The double homicide presents problems, and the police expect Nick to find a way to relieve the pressure. Complications ensue when it's soon apparent that Nick has a thing for the grieving widow Teresa (Bobbi Ashton), AND he has competition--namely, Tom's doctor buddy Carl (John Innocenzo).

Carl also has another problem. He's falsified medical reports and hidden his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer that allowed Tom to obtain a lucrative insurance policy before his expiration date. He certainly doesn't want an investigation into Tom's death with potential criminal charges and license revocation pending. So we have plenty of opportunities for black comedy afoot; the uneven film just doesn't deliver on its clever premise.

It's a fine line to walk here between a potentially serious subject of euthanasia and campy fun. Unfortunately, there's just not all that much fun here. Not that I'd expect a "Troma" treatment that would feature a lot more blood, gore, and gratuitous sex. There's very little in this unrated flick. Without the continual F-bombs and nature of its premise, the film would likely receive a PG rating at most.

If you're into plot-driven movies and don't care about nuanced characters and sophisticated dialogue, you can get some pleasures from McCleery's narrative skills. He does advance the story dutifully without getting too sidetracked—although a few flashback sequences to explain Nick's commitment for terminal patients really fall flat. Due to the fact that these scenes are shot as if happening in the present, the audience has to discern that they are of young Nick only by context, and they still remain superficial—offering only a simplistic justification for Nick's adult business.

Now available on DVD, The Altruist serves adequately for McCleery's resume to give him future chances to land a directing gig. Given a stronger screenplay and more experienced actors, the intriguing premise could evolve into a more satisfying project. Currently, it will find its way to a few DVD players for a few moments of amusement.