Waking Ned Devine

Review Date: June 7, 1999

My wife insisted we rent this movie the other night, and I must admit, it was pretty good. It's about these two old Irish guys whose friend dies from shock when he wins the lottery. The two old guys then undertake defrauding the Irish lottery commission by pretending to be old Ned (the dead winner). There's a whole town full of characters that have to agree to help these guys in return for equal shares of the prize money. It's a funny movie, the soundtrack of which is festooned with these incredibly majestic Irish drinking songs--A friend of mine came over at the end of the movie while an amazing song was playing and there was a whiskey toast on a seaside cliff and it's this truly picturesque scene, very affecting. My friend said, "They just handed the whiskey bottle to a 10-year-old kid. Yep, that's Ireland."

As you can imagine, this is a really difficult movie to imagine Bruce Willis in. I don't even know where to start. However, the other movies we rented this weekend wouldn't be any better. For example, I rented The Last Boy Scout, which is already a Bruce Willis movie. The other video I rented was a Grateful Dead concert from 1981, and I don't think their sound would be improved any by Bruce's dulcet tones. Mindy rented Shadowlands, which I actually watched with her after realizing it was about C.S. Lewis. I wanted to see who played J.R.R. Tolkien, since for years he and C.S. Lewis bounced all their ideas off each other, but he was left out of the movie. Anyway, I think that if the Narnia books had been written by a Bruce Willis character, they would have turned out very differently. For example, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Tumnus the fawn would have been leaning agaist the lamppost, smoking a cigarette. Reepicheep the mighty mouse would have carried a gun. Peter would probably have slapped Edmund around a little more. The whole series would have had more of a noir feel to it, I'm thinking. Of course, Anthony Hopkins played C.S. Lewis, and I don't think there was any blatant cannibalism in the Narnia books--but this site isn't about Anthony Hopkins, and this article isn't about Shadowlands.

So back to Waking Ned Devine. I could imagine a few cute little vignettes to write about were I to use Bruce as a replacement for either of the two old men who are the main characters in the film (Michael O'Sullivan was one name, the other I forget). Or I could write about an emotionally satisfying scene in which the village pig farmer, played by Bruce, knocks cold the village playboy who's been trying to steal his girl. However, as we've explored before, Bruce's relationships with females are often marked by violence, so she'd probably knock his teeth out afterwards.

I've chosen none of these paths, however. Instead, let's give Bruce the role of the Lottery examiner, Jim, who is assigned to verify "Ned's" identity. In the movie, this Jim fellow doesn't really have much to say; he's merely a plot device, and as such the character is not developed. He's simply there to set up the situation, then be the town's dupe.

Bruce, however, is no one's dupe. Recall the self-deprecating but highly effective ex-Secret Service agent turned Private Investigator in The Last Boy Scout. In the midst of an argument with his wife, his keen eye takes in the details--a raised toilet seat, steam in the shower and his wife's dry hair--and draws the conclusion that since there's no one under the bed, there must be a guy in his closet. Would this man be fooled by a couple of bumbling old Irishmen?

The first appearance of the Lottery official actually is reminiscent of a Bruce Willis movie--or maybe an X-files episode. An unmarked helicopter drops the official onto a country road in the middle of nowhere... with a rental car waiting for him. He then drives toward Tullymore, the community where the dead Ned resides.

Jim, the lottery official, stops to ask for directions and finds the two old men (though he only sees one of them) swimming naked in the ocean. The man whose name I can't remember gets in the car and stalls by giving phony directions while Michael rides "bareback," so to speak, on a motorcycle to Ned's house to wait for them.

Would Bruce fall for this type of duplicity? Well, if he were to see past the small deception of an old man stalling for time the movie would end pretty quickly when he arrived to find the other old man's wrinkled ass frozen in mid-dismount, scrotum bruised from the rough ride. So for the sake of plot let's assume that if Bruce suspects the old man, he keeps it to himself and they arrive at Ned's house as scheduled.

When they arrive and no one answers their knock, the old man tells Jim that he'll check in back and finds the naked Michael locked out of the house. What follows is admittedly hilarious, but would make even a normal Lottery official suspicious, much less super-sleuth Bruce Willis. I don't feel like summarizing the entire scene, but a few key points are another naked bike ride to retrieve the ticket and Ned's papers, the nervous recitation of Ned's stats from the toilet seat, and the frantic giggle which followed Jim's announcement that he's return to the town in a few days to verify Ned's identity. Jim left oblivious. Bruce would leave scheming.

You see, there was no single overwhelming piece of evidence that told Jim he was dealing with fraud. But there were a dozen little clues that Bruce would pick up on. By this time Ned's body was several days old and still in the house. I'm sure the stench would be noticable, no matter how well they'd cleaned, disinfected, etc. Also, Michael changed into the same clothes that the other old man had been wearing during the extended drive out to Ned's place. Surely they would be recognized. Even if all old men do dress alike.

So Bruce leaves town, and the two old men have to decide what to do. The lottery prize is much larger than they had imagined, and the penalties for fraud loom large in their minds. Evantually they decide that the nearly 7 million pound prize money could be shared by the entire town--population 52, leaving about 150,000 pounds for each person. They call a meeting and tell everyone that it's "what Ned would want."

Everyone but the town bitch agrees, and they go ahead without her. Then, for some bizarre, inexplicable reason, they hold Ned's funeral the next day, about when the Lottery official is expected back. Of course in the real movie Jim appears at the funeral after looking all around town and funding nobody home, then hearing singing from the church. His characteristic hay-fever induced sneeze announces his presence, and a eulogy becomes in mid-sentence Michael O'Sullivan's instead of Ned Devine's. Oblivious Jim shows absolutely no sign of suspicion and hands over the check.

Bruce, however, has been busy. Searching whatever archives he has available to him, he's been unable to come up with any sort of verifying data--photo ID, fingerprints, etc.--for Ned Devine. Ned was a simple fisherman who spent all his time on his beloved ocean, and never had need for any state-sanctioned proof of his existence. Undaunted, Bruce studies newspaper back-issues--again, nothing. Buying a winning lottery ticket was the first newsworthy thing Ned Devine ever did.

So there's no direct proof a fraud is being committed, but Bruce senses that that's exactly what's happening--and Bruce is a man to follow his hunches. He comes back to town and finds nobody home. Sensing that something is up, he finds the old man's house, having remembered his name better than I, the reviewer, have. He enters the house, which is probably unlocked, this being rural Ireland, and finds a list of names. Cross-checking against a town directory, he finds that everyone in town save one woman and old Ned Devine himself have entered into some kind of agreement.

He looks for the old woman, but can't find her, as she is wheeling her way out of town to call the Lottery Commission and report the fraud. Nor is Ned Devine at home. Finally, hearing the voices from the church, he heads there. To be fair, we will give Bruce the same hay-fever which caused Jim to give away his presence. The eulogy is changed to use the name "Michael O'Sullivan," a name he remembers from the list of signatures, a list dated yesterday. After some questioning he learns that this "Michael O'Sullivan" died several days ago. He's got something, but he's not sure what...

Ah, this is going nowhere. Better luck next week. In the meantime, read Last week's review or my new Last Boy Scout Review.