SportLotto - 82

A missing lottery ticket is hunted on a holiday train and then in a seaside town. The ticket has won the top prize and nobody knows who is holding it. The people who lost it, the people who found it and the people trying to steal it circulate through the same hotel, the same beach and the same corridors. The subject is not money but everyone's simultaneous effort to look honest. None of the characters admits to being a thief; each finds a reasonable justification for what they are doing, and the humour comes out of those justifications. The form is Leonid Gaidai's known arrangement: short scenes, continuous chasing and physical gags. The tempo is kept high and the narrative never gets heavy. It was among the most-watched Soviet films of its period. The holiday culture in its background, the cooperative hotels and the arrangement of the seafront now carry documentary value; beyond the comedy it is watched as a record of everyday life of the time. Mikhail Pugovkin, a fixture of Gaidai's comedies, is in the cast here too. Algis Arlauskas and Svetlana Amanova lead. Who it is for: viewers curious about Soviet comedy and everyday life in the eighties. Who it is not for: anyone who knows the director's earlier work; this film is less sharp and repeats itself.