Jackpot!, 2024.
Directed by Paul Feig.
Starring Awkwafina, John Cena, Simu Liu, Ayden Mayeri, Seann William Scott, Dolly de Leon, Donald Elise Watkins, Michael Hitchcock, Becky Ann Baker, Sam Asghari, Leslie David Baker, Murray Hill, Adam Ray, Taylor Ortega, Holmes, and Machine Gun Kelly.
SYNOPSIS:
In the near future, a ‘Grand Lottery’ has been newly established in California – the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot.
Understandably, the teaming of John Cena and Awkwafina alongside a veteran action-comedy director will attract attention and be the selling point of Jackpot!. However, it is probably more fitting to discuss the film’s writer, Rob Yescombe, who has worked on movies before but is also known for open-world sandbox video games such as The Division and the infamously bad Rambo adaptation of that medium. That’s because the concept here, which revolves around a Purge-like scenario where murder is legal (no guns allowed, although nonlethal firearms are acceptable) against monthly billions- sized -jackpot winners, something instated into California shortly for simplistic reasonings that are never explored beyond the opening credits text.
As the prologue follows around the most recent winner (a glorified cameo from the always funny and reliable Seann William Scott) trying to stay alive until sundown when the hit will be off, there is immediately a sense that maybe this was intended to be some kind of online MMO at one point before Paul Feig connected with Rob Yescombe and worked out a cinematic collaboration. Again, It would explain how disinterested the story is in that core concept and how an unnecessary final boss-type character is introduced, exploring meaningless, generic backstories.
That’s also not to say it’s a bad creative choice to stick to the urgency of constant survival and escape, showcasing every type of person imaginable across all professions on the hunt (everything about it screams create your character and do whatever you can to kill the winner.) For the most part, Paul Feig takes advantage of that aspect to incorporate a variety of locales for staging carnage, whether it be inside a props museum, a stage theater, or car chases on the streets. He also has two charismatic leads at the center who can carry the film despite those other shortcomings.
Aspiring actress Katie (Awkwafina) has just returned to California following the tragic death of her mom, the woman she had been taking care of for the past several years following her father walking out, and the one who helped her discover that love for film and acting as a child. Saddled with a selfish and self-absorbed, greedy Airbnb host (Ayden Mayeri), Katie finds herself scrambling to meet with a talent agency, borrowing some of that host’s clothes (you can discover how Katie’s are dirtied), unaware that there is an electronic lottery gadget in the pants which she unintentionally activates with it recognizing her identity despite her never once doing anything to opt into such a program.
That’s just the beginning of the enormous suspension of disbelief required here, as Katie, once she unknowingly becomes the winner and all of California is trying to kill her, has never heard of this sweepstakes. There is a throwaway line attempting to write this off as her being focused on film and her mom so much that she apparently never got around to checking out the news in the past few years. Anyway, the idea here, which doesn’t go beyond surface-level metaphor, is that Katie will quickly discover what it’s like to be a celebrity of sorts.
In Katie’s first brush with death in that talent agency establishment, she comes across John Cena’s mercenary for Hie Noel, who offers his services as long as she agrees to cut him in on the winnings should she survive until sundown. Expectedly, Awkwafina is provided ample time for wisecracking, although it sometimes comes across as forced. Meanwhile, John Cena is doing his overly polite routine, calm and collected even when under attack. And while they share decent enough banter and have amusing things to do (Noel trying to extinguish flames on someone’s groin area by stomping on it comes to mind), there also isn’t anything special that makes this the terrifically inspired pairing it seems to be on paper. Some credit is deserved for the stunt work on hand, as most of the fighting and vehicular chasing here is pleasantly practical.
Nevertheless, the killers keep coming and coming until a fairly solid callback to a joke brings Katie and Noel some temporary sanctuary that I won’t spoil. They bond and then find themselves inside a protection agency run by Simu Liu’s Louis Lewis, where once again, the concept stalls and is replaced by this weak attempt at characterization that mostly leads to some decisions that don’t make sense. Most important to stress is just how boring and pointless the backstory here about these characters becomes. From the reasoning behind this lottery to the action and humor at the center to the thin storytelling, Jackpot! certainty has moments of gold but leaves much to be desired in the execution.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
