WAKING NED DEVINE Reviewed by Luke Buckmaster
Cast: Ian Bannen, David Kelly, Fionnula Flanagan, Susan Lynch, James Nesbitt, Brendan F. Dempsey, Eileen Dromey, Jimmy Keogh Director: Kirk Jones Screenplay: Kirk Jones Australian theatrical release: December 26, 1998
On the Buckmaster scale of 0 stars (bomb), to 5 stars (a masterpiece): 2 and a half stars
After a clever and hilarious opening scene, it is hard to accept that Waking Ned Devine fails to maintain a consistent comedic beat. With the pitch and tone of a quirky comedy but an off and on direction, Ned Devine is often simultaneously hard to hate and hard to enjoy. Debut writer-director Kirk Jones seems oblivious to the idiocy of his subject matter, and regularly struggles to bring a sense of humor to the outrageous. That is why he resorts to some monotonous scenarios, but occasionally strikes gold by giving his elderly protagonists enough flair to make whatever they do seem bearable.
Poor Ned Devine was lucky enough to win a lottery of 6.8 million pounds, but unlucky enough not to live to spend it. We learn that Ned was literally shocked to death, holding his winning ticket and watching TV at the time of the unfortunate incident. Enter elderly friends Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) and Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly), a twisted pair who are intent on finding the winner of the lottery and squeezing a share of it for themselves. They learn that the winner is a resident of a small town named Tullymore, population 52. Eventually discovering that the person they are looking for is dead, Michael pretends he is Ned Devine, and the town's residents are dragged into the task of confirming his borrowed identity so that they can split the loot between them.
Jones' screenplay sprouts various subplots, all of which are neither as original or entertaining as Jackie and Michael's quest to obtain the prize money. The various residents of Tullymore appear as pretty much lifeless, with only Bannen and Kelly breathing life into their characters. Their performances are solid and memorable, and will undoubtedly draw comparisons to the work of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.
The scenes that stage Waking Ned Devine's jokes are generally quite entertaining. One great thing that Jones achieves is a coherency with the style of his comedic scenes, and he does his best to steer the film away from gags that we have seen before. Desperately trying to be original, Jones goes to extreme lengths to squeeze laughs, including placing a nude O'Sullivan on a motorcycle and making O'Shea change Ned Devines face expression. Some may find these moments hilarious, but I found them irritating. A nude old man on a bike is funny for the first few seconds, as is somebody moving the jaw and eyes of a dead man. Although entertaining, Waking Ned Devine does not have the comic timing of something like The Full Monty (which it has been persistently compared to, simply because both films were made in the United Kingdom), or the witty black humor that can make these films so funny.
Needless to say, Waking Ned Devine is lightheaded and generally quite enjoyable. Thus, it is such a disappointment that Kirk Jones has not only managed to spoil the atmosphere of his film on many occasions, but he has ruined entire scenes with bad writing and timing. In one of Waking Ned Devine's most emphasized moments - when some of its characters raise their glasses to the dead lottery winner - Jones misses the appropriate tone entirely. Instead of being touching, it is faintly idiotic and out of place. That's just one example of Jones' off and direction, although I guess one of its positive assets is that for every bad scene he makes, there is a reasonable (if not good) scene to counterpart. If Jones had been able to maintain a solid comedic beat and an effective dramatic core, Waking Ned Devine could have been much more than what it is: a film which is simultaneously hard to hate and hard to enjoy.
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