Thanks for the memories!

Overrated

Fresh and Exciting

Excellent adaptation.

The promo for this film says it all. "When a lottery winner dies of shock, his fellow townsfolk attempt to claim the money." But, it's a lot more than just a planned fraud or crime. "Waking Ned Devine" is a comedy about life and friendship and sharing with neighbors. The perpetrators and brains behind the deal have a sense of doing justice to the memory of Ned. A scene near the end seems to send a message that that's how providence would have this story play out. The movie starts off with people in the small coastal village of Tullymore, Ireland (Tulaigh Mhor) watching for the weekly drawings in what seems to be the Irish National Lottery. Jackie O'Shea (played by Ian Bannen) and his wife Annie (Fionnula Flanagan) see a small item in the Dublin news that leads them to trace the jackpot winner to their village of 52 people. Jackie and his friend, Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) devise a plan to try to find out who the winner is. The happenings before the discovery that Ned Devine is the winner, are hilarious. Then, when they discover he died while watching the TV drawing, with his winning ticket in his hand, the idea about claiming the prize for themselves take hold. Humor runs rampant as these two gents call to claim the prize, and then enlist the whole community, saying that everyone will get an equal share. Of course there has to be a hitch – and that's in the person of Lizzy Quinn, played by Eileen Dromey. The film is rife with comedic scenarios and wonderful sidesteps about local romance and friendships. This is a wonderful, beautifully acted, hilarious and warm comedy that all should enjoy. It was filmed entirely on the Isle of Man with some wonderful scenic shots along the coast of the Irish Sea. The village of Tullymore is fictitious. Incidentally, the lottery prize is 6,894,620 pounds. In 1998 US dollars that's nearly $18.2 million. Divided 52 ways, it comes to almost $350,000 per person in Tullymore.

This is a wonderful movie which captures village life in Ireland brilliantly.The antics of the 2 main characters is hilarious and captured their life long friendship and affection .Love,Greed,Loss and Decency are all covered in a story of village folk trying to hoodwink the Irish Lottery when one of their neighbor's dies of shock when the lottery numbers are announced on TV winning millions,but the prize is destined to go back to the Government as the winner,Ned Devine was a single man with no family to claim the prize.So the race is on to Ressurrect Ned once more!...There are a few familiar faces in the cast and sadly Ian Bannen died in a car accident soon after...Enjoy the movie...you wont be disappointed!!

Ireland, as a subject in fiction, lies in the curious hinterlands between fantasy and reality. While the gritty, ugly violence in the North remains a present memory, Éire cannot quite shake off her aura of romance.Waking Ned Devine embraces the magic side of Ireland, perhaps to too great an extent, forgetting to ground itself in a harsher reality. Yet even in its absurdest moments, the talent and charm of the cast anchor the story, lending just a touch of gravitas to what is ultimately the tale of leprechauns stealing gold.Our chief leprechaun is the irrepressible Jackie O'Shea, played with panache and roguish delight by Ian Bannen. His best friend, and every bit his equal, is lanky, timid Michael O'Sullivan (the great David Kelly). They live in Tullymore (Tulaigh Mhór), an idyllic coastal village with 52 inhabitants. When Jackie and Michael deduce that a local has won the lottery, they concoct a string of harebrained devices to identify and ingratiate themselves to the "lucky sod." It takes a while to discover that he is, in fact, elderly fisherman Ned Devine, who promptly after realizing his win, died from the shock of it.Jackie and Annie, his rosy-cheeked wife (Fionnula Flanagan), sit quietly in their kitchen and share solemn, small-town generalities about Ned's decency and kindness. It is, of course, a tragedy to die in the face of such a pot of gold; it's worse than ordinary death. Going to bed, they say a simple, rehearsed prayer for the soul of Ned Devine, and go to sleep.In a rather vague dream, Jackie becomes convinced Ned intends him to claim the money. It's such an absurd proposition, such an obvious self- deception, that we laugh along with Jackie, recognizing our own tendencies to lie to ourselves. If the story had tried to justify events following in any sort of believable fashion, I would have instantly lost sympathy with our errant leprechauns, but as it is, we are still in the realm of fantasy. And, as Roger Ebert observed: "Stealing 6.8 million pounds from the lottery is, of course, not too wicked."So Jackie and Michael set to work, cleaning up the corpse and searching Ned's documents (we're starting to realize this is rather a black comedy). The next morning, they call and make the claim, much to Annie's dismay. There is now no turning back, and with the unexpectedly early arrival of the lotto man, things are off to a break-neck pace. The plot quickly spins into a complex rivalry of cleverness versus an increasingly impossible task. Refusing to resort to quick fixes (except in one sublimely evil deus ex machina), writer/director Kirk Jones seems to delight in throwing up ever higher obstacles for our heroes.In the interim, time rolls on, as we come to know each of the eccentric citizens of Tullymore. Lizzy Quinn, the village witch, rouses everyone's hatred with her mean-hearted greed. Mrs. Kennedy at the Post Office is happily expecting a new grandchild. Giggly old lady Kitty is determined to trap bachelor Michael. An intelligent, precocious child bonds with the insecure, but kind, temporary priest of Tullymore's only church. The local pig farmer (James Nesbitt, of Hobbit fame) romances a darkly beautiful single mother (Susan Lynch, The Secret of Roan Inish), who rejects him on the basis of the smell of pig (another example of how lightly the film takes real relationships.) It takes full advantage of the unearthly beauty of the Isle of Man, soaring green cliffs and rocky shores, misty hollows and vast oceans, haunted by the wail of bagpipes, the beat of bodhran, and the swift thrill of a fiddle. Catholicism forms a stately (if passive) backdrop to the quaint village, and Lux Aeterna is worked into the soundtrack beautifully. Unlike many films, it is often content to let the camera rest on the gentle shadows, to let the seconds tick by as an old man sleeps. There is a beauty, an idyllic goodness to it all that guides me into Faerie.Despite its full acceptance of rather shady moral actions, the film is ultimately about generosity, a spirit of community, and the laughter of friends. Also crime. It has just enough magic to convince us that's a worthy cause. Originally posted at: http://www.longview95.blogspot.com/2014/07/waking- ned-devine-movie-review.html

"Waking Ned Devine" is a thing of beauty, a simple joy all the way through. Watching it is to feel a little less sorry for the stuff of life and death.Good fortune has come to the small coastal Irish village of Tullymore. One of its residents apparently holds a winning lottery ticket. But who? Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) gives his crafty mind a lot of exercise trying to figure it out. Eventually he does, but his discovery proves to be only the beginning, and it will take all his cleverness to see to it he isn't cheated of what he views as nothing less than his Devine reward.Imagine one of those fine old Ealing comedies, ramped up with scenics and whimsy right out of the more recent "Local Hero," and you get a pretty fair idea what to expect here. Director-writer Kirk Jones reveals himself in his first feature film as a worthy successor to Bill Forsyth and the rightly-vaunted British comedy tradition.Yes, it's set in Ireland, but was actually filmed on the Isle of Man, and draws its cast and crew from across the British Isles. It's only fair the film's a bit of a masquerade like that, as it celebrates an approach to life that's anything but on the level but wonderously amiable all the same.Watching Bannen's expressions of surreptitious glee while pushing his oldest, dearest friend Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) to commit crime is really too much of a pleasure to explain. You just root for him, and pause only a little to wonder at what else you'd let him get away with."He never told a lie in his life," O'Shea's concerned wife Annie (Fionnula Flannigan) exclaims as she catches him in the act."Well, he's makin' up for it now, so," Jackie coolly replies, one of many big laughs here.Kelly and Flannigan are Irish, so I guess they are more on the level than Bannen, a Scotsman. Together, the three make for a beautiful fulcrum for the film's ever-twisting plot. They are aided by a fine cast of stiffs, harridans, and lovable eccentrics who make up the lucky village of Tullymore.Jones really dresses up this pastoral comedy well, with stunning scenics of shore and sky. The Waterboys, Liam O'Maonlai, Rita Connelly, and assorted musicians provide a rousing score that add to this film's rich, charming quality.Even death itself isn't allowed to intrude upon things too much, though it does come a'calling more than once. A funeral service provides one of "Waking Ned Devine's" funniest and most affecting scenes as O'Shea eulogies one of the characters with a very witty capper of a line: "He had his faults!"I'm at a loss as to what faults I can call on "Waking Ned Devine." Maybe the fate of one unpleasant character seems a bit too left- field on reflection, but I was laughing too hard at the time to notice.The best thing about this movie is how it never lets up that way. It picks you up and never lets you relax even as it engages you. No sooner do you wonder how O'Shea and his co-conspirators will get out of one mess then they are in another, and scrambling as furiously and hilariously as ever. "Waking Ned Devine" is well named; a sleeper comedy that wakes you right up.