In all honesty, after hearing so many terrible things about Jackpot! I thought it might be fun hate-watch viewing. The reality is, though, it’s a film so boring and stilted, I couldn’t even be entertained by what makes it so painstakingly bad.
Paul Feig hasn’t had the greatest track record as of late, but there existed a glimmer of hope that John Cena (whom I enjoyed greatly in Ricky Stanicky) could potentially turn this one around. Playing Noel, Cena takes on the role of a freelance protection service, serving as a one-man bodyguard to the winner of a deadly state-wide lottery.
In the near-future of 2030, Feig realizes a world where California is in such financial straits that as a means of “providing” for their residents, they’ve created a lottery system wherein a winner is randomly selected on each Lottery Day to win millions of dollars. Everyone else in the state is then given from the winner’s announcement to sundown to kill the winner with no repercussions. Whoever kills the winner will inherit the prize money, and if the winner makes it to sunset, they walk away with their spoils.
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As is the American way, this dystopian government programme breeds commerce, such as Noel’s agency, as well as a larger, swishier protection agency fronted by Louis Lewis, played by Simu Liu. Both Noel and Louis set out to find the lottery’s latest winner, Awkwafina’s Katie Kim, a former child actress and current wannabe adult actress who happens to return to L.A. a day before the biggest jackpot: $3.6 billion.
I could harp on about how Awkwafina continues to play an exaggerated version of herself, which may or may not be grating (for the record, she’s not that grating in this one), or how both Awkwafina and Cena seem to be deliberately choosing films that neither push them as actors nor as comedians. However, the bigger issue at hand is how little mileage exists in the premise.
The idea of a Purge-like environment in the name of economic survival and greed feels timely and ripe with commentary. But what plays out in the film renders more on the side of a last minute addition Saturday Night Live sketch that airs at 12:52 am than humorous. The comedy never gets to be so broad or camp to be considered divertingly amusing, nor is it at all clever enough to be seen as actual satire. Jackpot! sits on a comedic plane where indifference presides.
