Chris Knipp Writing: Movies, Politics, Art


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PostPosted: Wed Aug 25, 2010 3:25 pm 
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Bow Wow (Shad Gregory Moss) in Lottery Ticket

Yearnin' Learnin'

Lottery Ticket, a ghetto comedy clearly directed to African-Americans (there's barely a white face to be seen in it), presents a wholesome picture of the realities of poor black people in urban America, with a lot of good laughs along the way. This is truly a black comedy but not in the sardonic white people's sense. Almost all the action takes place in the Fillmore housing project in Atlanta. Director White and Ice Cube, the presiding spirit as the producer and performer of the role of Mr. Washington, a mysterious deus ex machina figure who emerges as a protective mentor for the hero, provide a panorama of ghetto life that both satirizes and celebrates. Some reviewers are troubled by what they think are "stereotypes." Black artists use these to consider their reality while poking fun at them. Commedia dell'arte trades on stock characters too, and through Lottery Ticket's simplifications White and his writer Abdul Williams avoid liberal cliché, providing instead a wholesome emphasis on positive values.

The movie's central theme is a daily reality of poor blacks in the USA, not to mention poor people everywhere: without the hope of making it in the white man's world, you dream of winning the lottery. As the movie says the lottery is just a way to make big bucks out of poor people's fantasies of becoming rich. So hard-working young Foot locker employee Kevin (Bow Wow), whose Grandma (Loretta Devine) plays numbers that come to her in dreams, goes against his principles and plays a number from a Chinese fortune cookie at the urging of his girlfriend Stacie (Naturi Naughton). And he wins, with the pot a staggering, too-good-not-to-try-for $370 million.

The movie's basic theme of an innocent who strikes it rich and doesn't know what to do has been dealt with before in such classics (cited by black film critic Armond White) as René Clair's Le Million of 1931 and Ousmane Sembene’s 1968 Mandabi. One might think also of the sweet pathos of the poor people in Rossellini-De Sica's 1950 Chaplinesque neorealist film, Miracle in Milan, who are granted their wishes, and get it just wrong -- just like the hapless hero of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's 1967 Bedazzled.

Lottery Ticket conveys the basic message that Gordon Gecko's Eighties motto is dead wrong: Greed is not good --it's just a very human thing. People who have never had enough money can be forgiven for going nuts when they get hold of a bunch of it. Yes, a windfall brings out the worst in some people. But it can bring out the best in them too.

This is why it's important that Bow Wow is a very appealing young actor as the ghetto innocent who dreams of starting his own shoe company.

The news of his win comes to Kevin at home with his Grandma watching TV. After they've danced a jig of joy, Kevin tells Grandma this has to be kept secret. A lottery ticket worth $370 million is a very dangerous thing to possess. It's Fourth of July weekend and Kevin has to wait three days to claim his winnings. Unfortunately, Grandma can't keep a secret, and the news immediately gets out. What transpires illustrates the desperation that prevails in the poor black community, but also its solidarity.

There's a local gang kingpin, Sweet Tee (Keith David) who loans Keven $100,000 so he can celebrate with everybody before the winnings are in hand. Kevin goes on a wild spending spree, giving out presents right and left, buying out most of the Foot Locker store's stock, and of course getting dangerously into debt to Sweet Tee, whose big smile doesn't hid his willingness to saw off Kevin's legs at the knees if he can't pay back. There's the ex-con thug Lorenzo (Gbenga Akinnagbe) who just wants to steal the ticket (after gouging a bunch of free shoes out of Kevin at the Foot Locker. There's the sleazy lady who wants to become the young man's baby-mamma and distracts him from the upright Stacie. There's the heavily satirized crooked preacher man (Mike Epps) his Grandma is a fan of, who wants to use the money to build a mega-church and a mansion and buy himself a new young wife.

Kevin has an abortive sex evening with a local sex partner of the stars, Nikki Swaze (Teairra Mari), who looked down her nose at him before, but now wants his hot lovin'. When she refuses to use a condom, he jumps out of bed (another practical message).

Kevin's and his best friend Benny (Brandon T. Jackson) inevitably have a falling out because the tension strains their relationship. But Benny like Stacie proves trustworthy and the bond survives. So does the reclusive ex-boxer Mr. Washington, who Benney thought was a "serial killer," but turns out to be somebody who helps Kevin just out of a desire to mentor somebody. He comes out of his shell, and surely it's no spoiler to say that this comedy like all classic comedies ends with community and happiness. Mr. Washington is the most serious and realistic character and an anchor to the madcap action.

All these themes aside, the real value of Lottery Ticket is the sense it conveys of a world teeming with larger-than-life characters with a big cast of actors who play off each other creating constant rhythm and energy. Sometimes the violence and the sex may slow down the laughs and the whole enterprise may run dry (the best moments come in the first twenty minutes, when the energy is fresh), but to debunk the good natured humor and energetic pacing of Lottery Ticket, in a summer whose supply of on screen fun has not been plentiful, seems pretty pointless.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.


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