Robert Forsters character (spoilers)
In the commentary track on the DVD, Jeff Probst says that originally, Robert Forster had nine scenes, but they had to cut out many of them because the script was too long and they were behind schedule.
I tend to wonder whether those extra scenes would have cemented the plot.
Obviously when you make a movie about a winning lottery ticket, the story will be improbable -- after all, it is extremely unlikely that any given ticket will win the lottery.
But nevertheless, the script for this film just relied way too much on numerous unrelated and unlikely coincidences.
Look at it from the perspective of ‘fake Avery’ (James Earl Jones).
1. The first coincidence is that he knows what numbers real Avery plays. Think about it: of all your friends, family, and acquaintances, is there anyone about whom you could say ‘Oh sure, I know what numbers he plays.’
2. The real Avery lost his wallet on the exact same day that his numbers are picked.
3. The fake Avery goes to claim the wallet, and it just happens to have been found by a guy who has a group of friends that play poker for lottery tickets every week!
4. At the exact same moment, there happens to be some criminal who ran into the building so that the police lock it down.
These are just the most improbable of coincidences. There are others that have been pointed out, such as lack of photo ID in the wallet. This is quite convenient, considering that the majority of men do have a driver’s licence in their wallet, but I can forgive it since there are still a large number of people whose wallets have no photo ID.
And how did the fake Avery know about the real Avery’s parking tickets? Well, you could come up with a million explanations for this: most likely, the real Avery is just someone who likes to talk about how he got some completely undeserved parking tickets. Where it comes up in the movie, you can kind of see fake Avery’s brain working, and then it just pops into his head that he remembers about the parking tickets. But then, it doesn’t really hold up to analysis. If the real Avery were contesting the parking tickets, then he would have filled out the paperwork and so forth to get a date in traffic court. There would not be warrants out for his arrest.
I just wish that the film had tied together one or two more plot threads so that it did not rely as much on coincidence. For example, if it had turned out that the cops locking down the building was actually not a coincidence at all, but something that the fake Avery had engineered (by calling in an anonymous tip perhaps).
That all said, I think the film does have merit. Erik Palladino was good even though the character was unlikable. The scenes where Tep is digging himself deeper and deeper were hard to watch because you can understand him and even identify with him despite disliking him.
I also found the Lillard character difficult to watch with all his fidgeting and so forth, but compelling at the same time. I think that Lillard’s performance there was unique.
As for James Earl Jones, obviously he is very watchable, and unlike Palladino and Lillard in this movie, Jones is watchable in a way that you enjoy watching him as well as feeling drawn (or compelled) to watch him.