 | |
List Price: $9.98 | | Label: 20th Century Fox
Salesrank: 1355
Released: June 1, 1999 |
| Our Price: $4.02 |
| Used Price: $3.00 |
|
MPAA Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
|
Editorial Review:
When Ned Devine dies from shock after winning the lottery, two longtime friends, Micheal and Jackie, discover the body and agree Ned would want them to benefit from his good luck. They embark upon an outrageous scheme to claim the ticket but first they have to get all the townsfolk to go along with their plan!
Description of Waking Ned Devine:
When local wag Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) discovers that one of his neighbors in the village of Tulaigh Mohr is a lottery winner he sees a chance to share in the wealth. Things get complicated when Jackie and his pal Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) discover that the winner, Ned Devine, died of shock at the very moment he learned of becoming a millionaire. Undaunted, Jackie and Michael dispose of the lucky stiff and hatch a plot to impersonate him and claim the prize. Soon the whole village is involved and the plot rapidly thickens.
This film has been compared to The Full Monty, but it lacks the vein of desperation that added depth to that film. Instead, Waking Ned Devine is closer in tone to classic British comedies like Whisky Galore!, with its cast of eccentrics gleefully conspiring to outwit the authorities. Those with a low tolerance for twinkly eyed Irish charm might be tempted to steer clear, although the movie is saved, for the most part, by its central performances. Bannen is superb as an old man who is clearly hungry for any excitement he can drum up and David Kelly is remarkable as his scrawny sidekick. Kelly has had a long career as a character actor in film and television, but here he has a chance to really let loose. His naked motorcycle ride is a marvelous set piece and in all of his other scenes his twitchy, perfectly timed performance quite simply steals the movie. --Simon Leake
Waking Ned Devine Reviews:
Review for waking Ned Devine 
2009-12-03 - I absolutely love this movie, and I was so happy to find it for so cheap on Amazon.
The sound is a little bit wierd. Kind of hard to hear--maybe the music and background is too loud, and the voices are not loud enough.
Waking Ned Devine 
2009-11-05 - I love this movie. The acting is superb and the plot never has a slow spot. I've been lucky enough to make a few trips to Ireland and spend some real time in the smaller villages and the close knit feeling of a small town in Ireland is portrayed well by all involved in the movie. I've watched this movie on a number of occassions and I find something new to make me smile every single time. It's safe for kids and even the famous naked motorcycle ride was innocent enough to elicit a hearty laugh by my grandmother. This movie isn't about getting rich and winning the lottery it's more about how close a small community can be and how they all rely on each other in their every day life. Give this movie a try, it's a great escape from the sensory overload of most movies put out today.
Great, Great Film
2009-09-10 - Waking Ned Devine is a laugh out loud funny movie. It puts me in a great mood everytime I see it. Highly recommended.
Waking Ned Devine
2009-08-05 - This is an excellent witty and whimsical portrayal of two very old friends living in a better time and place. A eureka moment places these "simple" gents smack in the middle of the age-old pursuit of fast cash and out-smarting the system. A light-hearted adventure centered around one man's death (tastefully done) is just what the doctor ordered in a day of high-tech, over-produced, CGI, poorly constructed plot lines. The excellent acting by relative unknowns is unbelievably overshadowed by an even more excellent story line. Set in beautiful Isle of Man, Waking Ned Devine will not disappoint the intellectual. Make sure to have a pint on hand and join in the adventure.
Quite simply, Waking Ned is a superb film.
2009-07-01 - I first saw this movie back in 2000, when I was a lad of twenty. Having become fixated on Irish music and culture, a passion I still have to this day, I was encouraged to watch this movie by a lady friend. It ended up on my Christmas list. At the time, however, I didn't have a DVD player, so the movie was still on VHS.
The story of Waking Ned is at once simple and at the same time complicated. It takes place in a small village off the coast of Ireland, one of those places where everybody knows just about everybody else. Reminds me of my parents' home town in Wisconsin, though considerably smaller. This Irish village, however, seems composed largely of elderly folk with a few youngsters thrown into the mix. They live simple, easy lives, playing the lottery without necessarily expecting to win.
Things get complicated when it's discovered that the winner of the most recent lottery is a member of this small community. Lifelong friends Jackie O'Shea (played by the late Ian Bannen), and Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly), decide to find out who the winner is and make sure they're that person's best friends when they go to claim the money. Things become much less clear-cut, however, when Jackie discovers that the winner, Ned Devine, died of a heart attack brought on by the shock of discovering he'd become a millionaire. Not to be dissuaded, Jackie persuades Michael to help him in a scheme to impersonate Ned and claim the winnings. Rather than keeping it all for themselves however, Jackie decides to divide the money among all the residents of the village in response to what he believes is a vision from Ned. Ned, a kind and generous man in life, would probably have done exactly this had he lived to claim the money, so Jackie decides to go ahead with the scheme. The tricky part of course is convincing the entire village to go along with the whole thing. Matters are almost put to rest before they really get started when the man from the lottery shows up much sooner than expected, forcing Jackie, who had originally intended to impersonate Ned, to lay the burden on a reluctant Michael's shoulders. Michael, with no other options, rides his motorcycle, buck naked, from the beach where the two were rehearsing for the interview, all the way back to Ned's place while Jackie delays the man from Dublin.
All in all Waking Ned is definitely my idea of what a commedy should be, not too heavily reliant on crude jokes and profanity. In other words, true humor. Add to it the potential stumbling block of Lizzie Quinn, the village's resident grinch, and the subplot of the romance between Pig Finn, the local pig farmer, and Maggie, the farmer's daughter, and what you have is a delightfully lighthearted Irish tale of tragedy and triumph mixed liberally with humor. The musical score is particularly fitting near the very end of the film, which details the opposite fates of the villagers and Lizzie Quinn simultaneously. The film ends with a triumphantly beautiful rendition of The Parting Glass, one of my absolute favorite Irish tunes.
So all in all, I found this to be an excellent film and can't wait to own it on DVD.
