Waking Ned Devine is the kind of movie Walter Mathau and Jack Lemmon would make if they were Irish or wanted to trouble themselves to learn the brogue. Never mind the director is English and the setting is actually Britain's Isle of Man, whose government paid for a big chunk of the film's small budget. The craggy countryside looks Irish, and the village's thatched cottages could fool a leprechaun that this indeed is the Emerald Isle. Bannen finds the movie's elderly namesake home alone, his lifeless eyes staring heavenward, a lottery ticket in his dead fingers. Then the blustery Bannen convinces the mild-mannered Kelly to claim and split the jackpot.
Pandemonium erupts when the lotto man arrives unexpectedly.
Bannen takes the hapless bearer of good news in circles, giving Kelly time to chase ahead to Devine's cottage to impersonate the dead man. Kelly is so befuddled that he races off on a motorbike in only his shoes, socks and crash helmet. To the lotto man, everything appears in good order, but he must check around the village to verify the winner's identity. Just procedure, you know. The blarney is thick as the head on a good beer.