As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.

TODAY’S CRITIC: Juergen Strenger

Juergen is a guest writer who submitted a review of Waking Ned Devine. I’m all for giving folks a platform. Welcome to Every Movie Has a Lesson.

Summer is here, and so is the mood to procrastinate and relax. Everyone loves watching movies and there are some people who like watching re-runs of old movies and drama series to relax and kill time. However, not all movies are worth watching more than once. But to help with the summertime sadness, a classic comedy from the 90’s is all you need.

Directed by Kirk Jones, Waking Ned Devine is a comic movie released in 1998 starring Ian Bannen, David Kelly, and Fionnula Flanagan. Turning out as one of the highest grossing films of the time, Waking Ned still remains an entertaining comedy for audiences of all ages.

The film starts with the news of someone winning the national lottery. Later it is revealed that the winner is a person who is already dead. And that is none another than Ned Divine. Now, If the hosts of the lottery find out, the money would be returned back to be recycled in future. Considering that the lottery amount is huge, locals of Ned’s neighborhood don’t want to miss out on it and two of the locals Jackie O'Shea (Ian Bannen) and Michael O'Sullivan (David Kelly) come up with a plan. According to this plan, Michael will pretend to be Ned and the whole town will help him make this lie believable in return for some part of the lottery. So when the man assigned to handover the lottery money comes to town, Michael continues to convince him that he is, indeed Ned Divine while the whole town plays along.

Clever, smart and funny, the movie is full of great characters like Eileen Dromey who plays the role of a mean girl; Lizzy Quinn who roams around the town with her scrunchy nose and ill will. Simultaneously, there is a potential love story going on between a handsome and hardworking pig farmer who is in love with a girl. Even though she loves him too, she avoids him because of the way he smells. So the poor pig farmer has to choose between her and his pigs.

One of the highlights of the movie is when Michael (David Kelly) has to rush to Ned’s cottage and since he is out of time, he sits on a bike half naked and races home. This scene, is undoubtedly the best part of the film.

Full of small comic scenes thrown here and there in the script, director Kirk Jones manages to display the hilarious ways the locals and especially Michael try to overcome the obstacles that they constantly keep facing.

Rated at an average of 8/10, the movie got mostly good reviews from critics and sites like Empire, The New York Times, and IMDb. Still, there is one issue with the movie. The critics point out that there is also some dark comedy in the script. This makes some scenes not as enjoyable for kids. But as the trailer itself says, “in the game of luck it’s not who wins or loses, its who collects that counts”. And Waking Ned Devine is definitely a win for movie lovers!

CONCLUSION

Thank you, Juergen! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!