2 days ago
Beat the Lotto - a wry look at the joy of six in 1990s Ireland
"Once you heard it, once you saw it, you were in..."
One of the best stories from 1990s Ireland (or, indeed, anytime-you-like Ireland) gets a big-screen outing in this charmer of a documentary from director Ross Whitaker (Katie, Between Land and Sea, Unbreakable: The Mark Pollock Story).
Back in 1992, a syndicate led by Cork-born accountant Stefan Klincewicz decided "to play every single lottery line" by purchasing "all the combinations of numbers".
Even in the good old days of six numbers from 36, that was some logistical and financial ask - and the syndicate needed a rollover Lotto jackpot to clean up on the night. Months of planning came down to desperate hours as the draw neared. Could they do it?
Well, even if you know how this caper ultimately played out, director Whitaker makes sure you're still watching his film with a newcomer's sense of anticipation. Beat the Lotto is funny, pacy, and blessed with a better pitch than most Hollywood movies can manage. How has it taken 30-plus years to get this escapade into Irish cinemas?
Here, you have a portal to a different Ireland, one where the greeting "Good evening, Ronan" was the clarion call to get Saturday night well and truly under way. So much has changed, but one thing that's still the same is the yearning for "a bit of craic", mischievously hardwired into the Irish DNA and exemplified by the syndicate members who share their memories of taking on the establishment - definitely older, debatably wiser, and still game for a laugh after all these years. The footage of someone rocking up to a newsagent's with a crisps box full of £50s to buy heaps of Lotto tickets is so Guaranteed Irish that you may well feel a lump in your throat.
Whitaker hurries the ending, and it's frustrating that there isn't more of an epilogue, because all the interviewees are such good company that you'd love to hear a bit more. That aside, this film, well, makes a balls of it in a lovely way.
