“Jackpot!” is an action comedy film that portrays violence and sends a negative message with its relentless portrayal of losers seeking fame and fortune. The film is directed by Paul Feig, known for ‘Spy’, and is set in the not too distant future Los Angeles, which by all accounts sounds appealing at the beginning of the film, but soon becomes the complete opposite of that as the film goes on. The state runs a lottery system. In a bizarre turn of events, the law permits inhabitants to stalk and murder the lottery winners for their money. There are only a few guidelines for the hunt. Firstly, only those who had bought a ticket, lost the draw and the prize can participate. Another condition is: No firearms. A third limitation stipulates: the chase will only be conducted for a full 24 hours. In case the winner has not been proved winner by the end of the stated duration, he is entitled to his original winning amount.
Apart from that, there are no restrictions. Knives, clubs, broken bottles, bats, chains, rubber hoses, spears, curtain rods, mop handles, and possibly cars may be utilized (though it is puzzling that I never observed anyone attempting to run someone over, in hindsight, it seems strange). They can go after prey individually or even very large numbers at once.
In this case, Awkwafina portrays Katie Kim, a former actress who is now the target of the most recent chase and has just returned to her home after several years spent with a terminally ill mother in a different state. Prior to that, her father had passed long ago. She did not have a very cordial relationship with either parent.
Her personal history is given a little more context as to why she is oblivious as to how the California state lottery has culminated in a so-called ‘manhunt’ (It turns out she was staying with her mother. Yes, that is the reason.) and even why she should elicit our sympathies (apart from the fact that one of the previous lottery victors should not be hunted down like a THING, no one deserves it). Katie never perforates her own winning ticket she unbelievable comes into possession of it pure accidentally but never realizes it, until the moment when her number comes during the auditions which she does not win, and everybody fixes his or her eyes on her like a cartoon wolf looking at a lamb and waiting for barbecue ribs.
Since the beginning, an entire economy seems to have built up around the lottery hunt, but the film only focuses on one aspect of it. The aspect of awarding the finding success to those lucky enough to win the jackpot and hiring their agents to guard them from needless destruction in the process of grabbing the money. One such security agent is John Cena, who plays a lovable ass-kicker named Noel. He used to work for the best company in the industry controlled by a skanky tough guy named Louie Lewis (Simu Liu). After that, at the audition, Noel manages to rescue Katie, who currently finds herself in a terrible situation, with all the other women in the building and an entire gym of karate practitioners trying to take her out. She was trained in stage violence, but she didn’t really get all that much information. She has the right instinct but doesn’t really have a fighting style that will get her through. Except for Noel that is; if he is not around she can be a bundle of fresh meat. On the flip side, if Katie wasn’t there, he would just be another muscle-bound man, (and of course he does have a back story which Katie has but he would bring it out to her little by little),
Written by someone from video games industry Rob Yescombe and anyway video games such as “Jackpot!” makes no sense in a realistic way, and it does not have to. It has a structure derived from video games with similar scenarios repeating over and over until finally reaching the climax which brings everything to the big boss epic end.
There is a fair share of spur-of-the-moment humor that occasionally succeeds but more frequently resembles someone videotaped their practice sessions for a comedy show. The entirety is all in aid of a title that is more a poorly conceived humorous work than a well structured irony.
Yet, it appears to be unwilling to explore the broader consequences of the situation it is depicting, in which it is entirely rational and understandable for a society that has apparently ceased to endeavor to construct proper role models, to instead provide a commercial market for deplorable impulses. Young woman rents a sliver of a room through a website And when she arrives at the place, she realises that the images she saw earlier on the Internet are not true at all. And when Shadi (Ayden Mayeri) is the one who is letting that place out, she says, “We used fake pictures because if we didn’t, no one would ever rent it.” Later in the picture, Katie witnesses a little girl’s performance which seems to be a disaster thanks to all the loud swearing from her father who is one of those behind stage parents. After all, I’ve heard wretched things like, “I swear at your mother when she’s acting like a dumb f***ing whore.”
There’s one actress who gave us an idea that the film could turn into something interesting and exciting. Ace character actress Becky Ann Baker was given a chance to show us this ‘something’, but sadly only for a moment.
There are little things that she picks up on which other people can not see, such as the inner mouthing smile inward that a professional always has: the one having gotten over on someone that has trusted them, a deep rottenness that can be told by just a slight flicker in the eyes and is only seen by the trained eye.
In spite of a few exceptions, the character moments of the movie are way too out of depth than its best character allocation. It’s unclear the purpose the state has of allowing hunters to hunt down lottery winers like in the ‘Purge’ series, it visually seems after 1 day, the amount of maslaha such an exercise seeks to achieve will not be worth the huts that will be conferred but this is quite a film where I expect people to say anything like ‘Oh that was such a hilarious quote,’ or That looks oh so painful,’ orNice action plan.’
There are seedlings within that might have grown into a bold action comedy, perhaps of the order of “Robocop,” “The Running Man,” or even “Battle Royale.” This last one is what kept recurring throughout ‘Jackpot!’ because unlike ‘Jackpot!’, it’s so scathing in its idealism that it has transcended bitterness to a rather apathetic sense of being and because it has a vision as opposed to an idea and action which is innovatively conceptualized, shot, and choreographed as well as edited, which has never been Feig’s area of strength or quite frankly his area of focus (albeit ‘Spy’ had some of its ass kicking instances such as the kitchen brawl).
The two stars share a good chemistry as it seems they actually like each other’s company but still, there is nothing in the text that requires either of them to go a level higher, any level that James Gunn demanded of Cena in two remarkable comic book movies, ‘The Suicide Squad’ and ‘Peacemaker’ or that Lulu Wang demanded of Awkwafina in ‘The Farewell’. This for the most part is a rather calm and uneventful project that is uneventful of the coarse sensitizations that it is mocking.
As it is usual for films like this that are improv based, the bloopers at the end of the credits are funnier than the film itself.
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