If the thought of a film directed by Paul Feig in which Awkwafina and John Cena run and screech their way around a near-future Los Angeles trying to escape a baying mob out for blood is your idea of feature film hell, then you may be advised to stay away from Jackpot! Those of a sturdier disposition who decide to stick around will find themselves rewarded by an occasionally witty, over-sweary action film that runs its central idea into the ground and eventually runs out of steam once it’s allowed its two stars to overact and show off to their – and their director’s – heart’s content.
We’re in 2030 (close enough for the film not to need to attempt to look too Blade Runnery), and a financially-troubled California has created the deadly ‘Grand Lottery’ in which the lucky/unlucky prize winner has to survive until sundown, and anyone with a losing ticket is entitled to hunt the winner down and kill them (but no guns) to claim the gazillion-dollar price. It’s like The Purge but even more unlikely and with some jokes. Awkwafina plays Katie Kim, a former child actress who arrives in Los Angeles after years spent caring for her recently deceased mother. She is hoping to kickstart her acting career, unaware that the next Lottery has a record-breaking $3.6 billion jackpot. Katie unknowingly enters the Lottery and wins and is quickly attacked by everyone in sight. Into the rescue sails Noel Cassidy (Cena), a freelance Lottery protection agent who offers his services in exchange for 10% of her winnings. After nearly an hour of running, fighting, screaming, and shrieking, the pair find themselves falling under the protective wing of the Lewis Protection Agency and its head, Louis Lewis (Simu Liu). But with over three billion dollars at stake and the cash-hungry hordes still closing in, can even Lewis and his army of henchmen be trusted to keep Kim safe until she can claim her prize?
Jackpot! actually starts out quite promisingly. Katie’s sense of loss and her drive to find herself again in Los Angeles are quite sweet, and there are some amusing exchanges between her and her money-hungry slacker landlady Shadi (Ayden Mayeri) and her DJ boyfriend DJ (Donald Elise Watkins). But once the ‘plot’ kicks in, the gloves are off, and Awkwafina – who basically plays a version of herself in every project – dials it up to eleven even before John Cena arrives as the dim-witted muscle head he usually portrays. Jackpot! becomes increasingly irritating and irksome – and sadly predictable – as it drags on to its inevitable conclusion. However, the chaos is occasionally punctuated by some decent stunts and action scenes, and it’s good to see Awkwafina and Simu Li back on screen together, a reminder of how good they were together in Marvel’s Shang-Chi film a few years ago.
Noisy, raucous, undisciplined, Jackpot! is really a self-indulgent mess that needed dialling down a bit. It’s a shame it throws away the promise of the first half-hour or so for the sake of lots of sound, fury, and endless swearing. It’s definitely not a winning movie ticket.
Jackpot! is streaming now on Prime Video.
