29th Street movie review

A couple of years ago the Powerball lottery reached a gazillion dollars and all our friends were going nuts about it. Lorena and I drove across the border to Rhode Island and marched into a convenience store. We had never ordered a lottery ticket before and the guy looked at us as if we had come on a space ship. He did take pity on us, took our money, and handed us a bunch of tickets. Like millions of other people, we won nothing.

That does not happen to everyone, though. Someone does win big time once in a while. A guy called Frank Pesce (played by Anthony LaPaglia) did in 1970s New York. A "loser" son in a working-class Italian family (another similar movie that I like is West Side Story), he bought the ticket when he was forced to spend money at a convenience store to cash his check. The only problem is that he "gave" his winning ticket to the Italian mafia boss (while a "loser," Frank was also a lucky guy so much so that the mafia boss thought he was going to win the lottery), so that he won't harass his family for the debt they owed him. There are interesting twists and turns, and in the end, the family gets the money.

29th Street is a beautiful movie and shows the challenges of working class Americans in the seventies, though, things haven't changed much for low-income Americans. Some great acting by all, including Danny Aiello (who plays Frank's father), this true story (yes, the real Frank Pesce Jr. acts as the brother and is also the executive producer) comes to life in this excellent comedy.