My first thought after watching this movie was that the lottery ticket was a lot like the One Ring from Lord of the Rings. It is not that the ticket actually had any actual power but simply by being the winning lottery ticket had a corrupting influence upon all the people around it. Anyway, this film is about a young Negro who had grown up in the hood (in fact the entire cast of this film are Negro) and is having a bad day. However, while getting his Grandmother's ticket he is convinced to buy a ticket himself and uses the numbers that he was given in a fortune cookie. Turns out he won, but the lottery commission is not open till Tuesday (it is the Forth of July Weekend) so he must last four days before he comes into his wealth.
This movie was really painful to watch. Not only was there a lot of cultural slang (which made the movie hard to follow at places) it is just painful watching all of the trouble that the hero must avoid to get his wealth, and the fact that not only people change around him, but he ends up changing as well. Before he has come into his wealth everybody considers him a snitch because the local bully attempted to extort some shoes out of him, and when he didn't stick up for him the bully is arrested.
I did empathise with the hero though because it seems as if he is a nobody in the hood, and nobody wants him until he gets the ticket, and then he is Mr Popularity. Everybody is bending over backwards to befriend him and to try and get their cut of the pie. However I found the scene where the girl he likes is trying to bed him and then the huge carry on about her becoming pregnant was simply plain annoying. Okay, they are in the projects, but that does not mean condoms are not available. Then there is the church, that was just plain wrong. In fact the pastor in the church was simply a crook. It is probably that this was supposed to be a mockup, but it is scary that all to many churches use guilt and emotion to line their own pockets, and this particular scene where he shows the congregation the home he desires as being pure adulterated greed.
This film is about greed and fear, how greed changes people and how fear infects even the closest friendships. The closest to the Lord of the Rings was the scene on the roof where the best friend offers to hold the ticket and the hero freaks out and drives him away. However, even though he is got the money, there is still the chance that he might lose it. As the boxer said, the only money he had come into had been stolen off of him as he left the house.
For fear of reading too much into a pretty ordinary film, there is also some Christological ideas coming from it. That is in the sense of the now and not yet. It is said that we have inherited everything along with Christ, but the inheritance does not come until the consummation of everything (that is when we die). It is sort of like this film in that he had come into the money, but it will not be consummated until he hands the ticket in on Tuesday to collect his winnings. He may not have the cash now but it is coming.
It is a bit concerning wondering how such huge amounts of money would last in the Hood. Everybody here is poor and everybody here fights to keep one step ahead, but when one of their own comes in on his own everything changes. In the end you know who your friends are when everybody else has deserted you, but in this situation it is difficult to see when everybody wants a piece of the action. In the end our hero had a good heart, and decided to use his new found wealth to help change the Hood.
This movie was really painful to watch. Not only was there a lot of cultural slang (which made the movie hard to follow at places) it is just painful watching all of the trouble that the hero must avoid to get his wealth, and the fact that not only people change around him, but he ends up changing as well. Before he has come into his wealth everybody considers him a snitch because the local bully attempted to extort some shoes out of him, and when he didn't stick up for him the bully is arrested.
I did empathise with the hero though because it seems as if he is a nobody in the hood, and nobody wants him until he gets the ticket, and then he is Mr Popularity. Everybody is bending over backwards to befriend him and to try and get their cut of the pie. However I found the scene where the girl he likes is trying to bed him and then the huge carry on about her becoming pregnant was simply plain annoying. Okay, they are in the projects, but that does not mean condoms are not available. Then there is the church, that was just plain wrong. In fact the pastor in the church was simply a crook. It is probably that this was supposed to be a mockup, but it is scary that all to many churches use guilt and emotion to line their own pockets, and this particular scene where he shows the congregation the home he desires as being pure adulterated greed.
This film is about greed and fear, how greed changes people and how fear infects even the closest friendships. The closest to the Lord of the Rings was the scene on the roof where the best friend offers to hold the ticket and the hero freaks out and drives him away. However, even though he is got the money, there is still the chance that he might lose it. As the boxer said, the only money he had come into had been stolen off of him as he left the house.
For fear of reading too much into a pretty ordinary film, there is also some Christological ideas coming from it. That is in the sense of the now and not yet. It is said that we have inherited everything along with Christ, but the inheritance does not come until the consummation of everything (that is when we die). It is sort of like this film in that he had come into the money, but it will not be consummated until he hands the ticket in on Tuesday to collect his winnings. He may not have the cash now but it is coming.
It is a bit concerning wondering how such huge amounts of money would last in the Hood. Everybody here is poor and everybody here fights to keep one step ahead, but when one of their own comes in on his own everything changes. In the end you know who your friends are when everybody else has deserted you, but in this situation it is difficult to see when everybody wants a piece of the action. In the end our hero had a good heart, and decided to use his new found wealth to help change the Hood.