Yesterday marked the start of the X-th (that’s 10th) Ceau Cinema film festival, our (i.e. Timișoara’s) very own little yearly adventure in matters of film. With the big themes covering immigration, for the competition section, and Norwegian cinema, as part of a collaboration with the Bergen Film Festival, the opening pick was a Norwegian silent movie called The Bridal Party in Hardanger (1926). While not a sold-out event, it proved an interesting choice, standing strong among the several silent movies I’ve seen in my own exploration of the year.
That being said, tonight’s screening of Încă două lozuri (Another Lottery Ticket) was a packed affair, with director Paul Negoescu and star Alexandru Papodopol on site. The movie follows the widely successful Două lozuri (2016) (Two Lottery Tickets), and our protagonists stumble around once more in the hope of easy money.
The director (who helmed last year’s very well regarded Men of Deeds) cautiously announced that there’s still a bit of work to be done to wrap up production, particularly in the sound and editing department, but for all extents and purposes what we watched should prove very close to the final product.
The scenario this time around: Sile (Dragoș Bucur), just released from prison, has a tip about a guy living in a train station who made good money…mining crypto. So together with the gang, Pompiliu (Alexandru Papodopol) and Dinel (Dorian Boguta), they visit the oddball IT expert who can hook them up and hook them up he does, as a stroke of luck makes them overnight crypto-millionaires. That is, if they can recover the USB wallet that goes missing, which leads to another series of colourful meetings for the leading trio.
After enjoying the original, I hoped to have a good time with the sequel as well. People around me seemed to do so, but I struggled.
Some good things first – Negoescu still has a good eye and the framing of his set-pieces always makes the most out of the situations. He is patient and deliberate, varying between close and wide shots to good effect. The movie has a good rhythm and decent comic timing, with its leads likable, if rather bland. Where it hits trouble is in the uneven quality of its set-ups, often lacking freshness or choosing to pick low hanging fruit.
Romanian comedy hit rock bottom with the biggest hit of last year, Teambuilding, a movie that not only went after all the low hanging fruit (many of them already festering on the ground), but it also executed on them very poorly. Thankfully, we’re far from that here, with Another Lottery Ticket a decently conceived attempt at simple, clean fun.
However, I have two big gripes with it. Firstly, the inconsistency I mentioned, which makes it feel very hit and miss, but at least when it misses it’s only tedious, not insulting to all your senses. Secondly, there wasn’t enough (any?) evolution in our leading characters to either make them interesting, or give the actors more to work with; to surprise us at least a little bit beyond jokes about conspiracy theorists who medicate based on what their vet recommends. And the crypto-comedy felt strangely dated.
There are some moments which work well (though they rarely come in succession), with the best scene of the movie featuring a stop by the traffic police and a beautiful Dacia 1300. Or, shorter, but also entertaining was hearing a garbage dump “entrepreneur” waxing lyrical about sourdough bread while the guys are knee-deep in trash (yes, that age-old trope).
To me, that’s not enough though. Even with a movie that sticks so close to this old-school genre type, in which the plot is just an excuse for comic relief, there’s got to be more to it. More means good laughs via witty dialogue, biting social commentary or fresh comedy. Another Lottery Ticket comes up short on all of these. 5
tributary stu 