Directed By Paul Feig

Starring – Awkwafina, John Cena, Simu Liu

The Plot – In the very near future, the Grand Lottery has been established in economically challenged California. The only catch? Kill the winner before sundown and you can legally claim their prize. New LA transplant Katie (Awkwafina) accidentally finds herself with the winning ticket and must join forces with amateur jackpot protector Noel (Cena) to make it to sundown in order to claim her multi-billion dollar prize, all while dealing with Noel’s protection rival Louis Lewis (Simu Liu), who also wants to get her to sundown in order to claim his rich protection commission.

Rated R for pervasive language, violence, and sexual references

Jackpot! – Official Trailer | Prime Video (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Paul Feig movies are frequently hit or miss with me, but ‘Jackpot’ feels like his most ambitious step forward, both in genre and premise, which offers something strangely compelling outside of his usual comfort zone. That’s not to say that it succeeds with consistency or convincing effectiveness of ‘A Simple Favor’, but this Purge-like premise of a lottery winner being hunted by her poverty-stricken society in a dystopian future is at least a unique idea in its concept, which keeps the film from ever feeling boring throughout a nearly two hour run time. Another element in its favor to this objective is the surprisingly remarkable pacing of the film’s structure, which constantly maintains emphasis in urgency throughout a barrage of action sequences that pile on so frantically that it gives the film’s exposition little time to slow or dull. While the action isn’t tangibly detailed or at the very least believable in the way it constantly bends the laws of physics and gravity, there’s an outlining fun factor to their influence that is at least captured in ways that effortlessly attained my attention, and with a variety of them shifting out of different backdrops and unique extras in conceptual characters, Feig is able to constantly keep the audience guessing, as the film shifts through many darkly fascinating corridors of Los Angeles that range quite literally from Madame Tousoux’s Wax Museum to Machine Gun Kelly’s panic room, and I’m not kidding on either of those. In addition, the film is aided tremendously by the evolving chemistry and dynamic of Awkwafina and John Cena, who each elicit unshakeable energy to their respective portrayals that each feel comfortable opening themselves up to some pretty challenging and even degrading situations. For Cena, this has always been the case in his comedic career, as just the appearance of this lovable lug enhances lukewarm material towards garnering a few laughs, but in a city whose citizens are intentionally depicted to be coldly cruel and untrustworthy, Cena gives the film that defining element of heart that is such a pleasure to experience each time his character moves back into frame, and while the comedic material does him little favors, Cena’s eagerness to express himself throughout Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fandom or self-deprecating humor is easily the highlight in a film that feels constantly at odds with itself. As for Awkwafina, she’s never been my bag, but her annoying scale only reaches the halfway marks of the scale, and when she’s not trying too hard to be funny or crass, she actually supplants an endearing empathy to the character that takes her miles, all the while balancing a bickering banter with Cena that results in mutual camaraderie between their characters. Lastly, I’ve heard a lot of criticism about the lack of characterization to the film, which I find strange because there’s definitely plenty in the script that vividly outlines each of the duo’s respective backstories, giving viewers a bigger picture of who they were before coming into limitless cash that could change each of their lives. It’s possible that these people were checked out by the later half of the film’s second act, but there’s ample time donated to respectively fleshing them out on a conflictual level, and while it’s not quite to the level of most films donated to the cause of enacting humanity, in the case of this film I don’t think it’s exactly necessary, as the film’s plot and setting are its biggest ingredients.

NEGATIVES

Despite so much positively going for it, ‘Jackpot’ is a disappointment that doesn’t make the most of its flashy premise or comedic commitment, with each only meeting audiences halfway. On the former, there’s very little development beyond the initial overhead narration during the movie’s introduction, and with a backstory of a country starving for cash with literally no explanation to how it got that way in the first place, or an abundance of ensuing plot holes to an idea that is merely met at surface level, it left my suspension of disbelief working overtime to many obvious methods of eluding the rules and claiming the prize. Such an example is in the idea that a person who kills the lottery winner claims the prize. Well, what if someone kills them? Why hasn’t anyone tried before authorities get there? For the plot device, darling. If the film spent more time fleshing out this world and its concept in ways that audiences could grasp them without breaking concentration to ask questions, then the film would’ve truly had something special, but as it turns out the Los Angeles depicted here in 2030 feels no different or even dystopian from the world of today, leaving it the biggest tragedy in missed opportunity that Feig completely undervalues. As for the comedy, it miserably failed to my interpretation here, which could serve as a result of coming off of ‘Didi’, which is possibly my favorite comedy of 2024. Certainly the material doesn’t do anything to subscribe to this notion, as the punchlines lack punctuation so definitively that the actors have to work overtime to make egg salad out of dog shit, and even with the enhancement of R-rated material leaving no limitations to what the material can properly access, the film still only led to three laughs in the duration of my engagement, with all of them stemming from Cena’s unwavering commitment to reactions wielding responses, which unmistakably make him the movie’s Most Valuable Player, even if he’s not given top billing. Aside from surface level exploration and flat humor consistency, the script builds towards an antagonist mystery that is about as obvious as a fart after chili, especially with the evidential casting that limits the suspects quite remarkably. While it isn’t a key factor in the direction of the narrative until the end of the film’s second act, Rob Yescombe as a screenwriter clearly isn’t giving his audience any credit to sniff out a big name in the billing who hasn’t appeared at that point in the film, leading to a monumental reveal where you could hear crickets chirping, as the audience waited for the film to catch up to something that they figured out an hour before. Finally, while I previously commended the film’s action for an elicited fun factor that kept it engaging, the biggest absence from their capture is a lack of impact or brutality that not only wastes away an R-rating that could’ve brought out the nightmare of this dystopian future, but also essentially establishes each of these physical conflicts as stake-less, which means they might as well be tickling contests, instead of a statewide manhunt. I can understand that violence could conflict with the comedic beats of the storytelling if done improperly, but without showing the vicious side of people driven by money, it undercuts the magnitude and ferocity of what they’re truly capable of, which simultaneously wastes away an opportunity for Feig to further elude this box of conventionalism that his career has been plagued by. If these scenes were captured technically impressive, then it wouldn’t need brutality or violence to sell their impacts, but between choppy editing and an already ugly presentational canvas, the physicality is fighting an uphill battle before it even throws the first blow, feeling every bit of the straight-to-streaming quality that its appeal can’t properly evade.

OVERALL
‘Jackpot’ is a compelling idea wasted away by lazy execution, in both the exploration of its premise and lukewarm humor that contribute so minimally to its finished product. Despite meaningfully energetic commitment from Awkwafina and Cena, who continuously make the most of the material, as well as razor sharp pacing that persistently moves so frantically that the audience has little time to catch on to its ineptitude, the disappointing dividends take more away from the finished pot than preferred, leaving Amazon’s latest addition to a growing library significantly less than they or their audience were expecting with so much potential to its premise.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+