The year is 2030 and the state of California offers a lottery where, if you win the jackpot, you have to survive to collect. Between the time of the announcement and sundown, anybody can come after you and, if they kill you, they collect your winnings. The only caveat is, guns aren’t allowed which forces the money-hungry attackers to be in close physical proximity. Former child actor Katie Kim (played by Awkwafina) returns to Los Angeles in hopes of resurrecting her entertainment career. She unwittingly enters the lottery thanks to a ticket in some borrowed clothes and, therefore, becomes the target of anyone and everyone who wants to get their hands on the record-setting $3.6 billion she just won. Noel Cassidy (John Cena), a freelance lottery winner body guard, shows up to protect her and they agree on his going rate of a 10% cut. The two avoid the mobs for a while but Cassidy eventually calls in a favor to his old military buddy Louis Lewis (Simu Liu) and that’s when things start to go even more haywire.
The concept is interesting, and Awkwafina and Cena make it fun, but JACKPOT! presents far too many questions. Why is it set in 2030? Why did the original ticket buyer not thumbprint the ticket at the time of purchase? Why doesn’t the Lewis Protection Agency just kill her when she’s using that mask machine thing? Why are the funniest lines saved for the credits? The script was never going to win an Oscar but the movie’s biggest downfall is the sheer volume of convenient situations.
Sadly, it’s beginning to look a lot more like director Paul Feig will never recapture his incredible run of the mid-2010’s when he destroyed with BRIDESMAIDS, THE HEAT and SPY, back-to-back-to-back classics in a genre starved to induct another Hall of Fame worthy project.
Unfortunately, this isn’t it.
JACKPOT! is a solid streaming movie. You can put it on while doing laundry or while enjoying a lazy Saturday night and enjoy it but it’s more streaming service filler than anything else. There are some funny exchanges between Awkwafina and Cena but nothing that achieves “quotable” levels. The story has some heart with Kim’s backstory but, at the end of the day, if this was streaming on Crackle and not Amazon, I never would have watched it and I would’ve been okay.
JKG SCORE: 5.5
Untitled Film Project 