Let’s face it: if you ever went to any McDonald’s regularly at certain times of the year, then you probably collected some of those Monopoly pieces in the hopes of maybe winning something. Sure, the odds of winning anything, especially the big prizes, were pretty slim, but people regularly play the lottery despite long odds, so why not?
Well, it turns out the odds were a lot slimmer than anyone might have thought as HBO’s six part docu-series McMillions details.
On the face of it, there’s something faintly ridiculous about someone rigging the McDonald’s Monopoly contest. It doesn’t seem like something that can be rigged given the basic idea seems to be various McDonald’s fry packs and cups have random pieces glued to them, and there’s no telling where the big prize tickets would end up. But, someone found a way, and that someone came to the attention of the FBI. And that’s about where the documentary starts as colorful FBI agent Doug Mattews relates that he wanted in to do some deep cover work into a scam into something that, again seems faintly ridiculous.
Now, the fact that this documentary got made at all should tell you that the perpetrators were probably caught and maybe even punished. James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte manage to put together a show that starts off with a rather light tone. Why not? It’s a scam to steel from a fast food giant using a board game’s tokens to give out money to loyal customers.
But it wasn’t that simple, and this wasn’t a “nobody got hurt” sort of story. Later episodes, as the crime and its perpetrators were revealed, turn a lot more serious. Law enforcement and McDonald’s executives interviewed had to make sure they didn’t tip their hats too soon, and people involved on the crime end and their families were often dealing with shady figures who weren’t handing out million dollar tickets out of the goodness of their hearts.
This is a very thorough series, interviewing most of the major players–the mastermind of the scheme, understandably, does not participate– but there are a lot of eccentric people involved in this. Oh sure, no one here is going to be mistaken for a subject from Tiger King, but these are people who can grab the viewer’s attention with some larger-than-life personalities all the same. At the bottom of it all, this is a human story where a lot of people made a mistake to get some money, many of whom did so without putting too much thought into what they were signing on for and greatly regretting it later.
That said, while the series gets a little more serious as it goes along, it ends on the same lighter note it started on. The FBI and other law enforcement agents interviewed keep referring to a confidential informant, and the final reveal of whom that person was and their reason for doing what they did gave me a good solid laugh.
McMillions is the right combination of compelling and entertaining, a look back into the past to see a crime that, as I said above, may seem faintly ridiculous, but had serious consequences for a lot of people. Check it out if you can. HBO continues to have a good track record when it comes to documentaries with gems like this one.
Grade: A
0 Comments