‘Jackpot!’ review: In the near future, John Cena and Awkwafina are still better than the movies they reliably improve
Some folks think critics shouldn’t waste time writing about a movie’s missed possibilities, or what might’ve or should’ve been done with the premise, which sounds so bossypants. Just tell me what happens in this movie, the one that actually got made, and maybe a little about who’s in it. And whether it’s terrific or lousy. Either terrific, or lousy. Nothing in the middle. While I can’t begrudge this natural human preference for the clarity of extremes, the entertainment industry does not comply. A wildly mixed bag such as “Jackpot!,” streaming on Prime Video, lives in the all-too-familiar space between terrific and lousy. The movie manages a fair number of hit-and-run laughs amid a river of misses, and it has the stars it needs in Awkwafina and John Cena. They’re fun together on screen, and extremely deft at the elusive comic art of simultaneously under- and overplaying their responses to whatever’s happening.
It’s faint praise to note that “Jackpot!” wouldn’t get by without them. Premise: It’s 2030 Los Angeles, and things haven’t changed radically, though the economy’s in the tank and California’s state lottery is trying something new to increase revenue. The big winners must survive 24 hours after hitting the jackpot, while anyone and everyone else can try to kill them, legally, and claim the golden ticket themselves. No guns, though. Just knives, meat cleavers, guns using something other than bullets, what have you.
Awkwafina plays Katie, a cynical, newly orphaned former child star who has left her late mother’s place in Michigan to try her luck as an adult in Hollywood. Cena is sweet, insecure Noel, freelance lottery winner protection agent, who earns 10% of the winnings if he can keep his client alive long enough. Screenwriter Rob Yescombe adds a nice amount of supporting characters, including Katie’s fellow struggling actress and Airbnb host (Ayden Mayeri) and Noel’s former mercenary colleague, Mr. Big in the lottery winner protection racket (Simu Liu).
The movie’s basically one melee after another, beginning with Katie and her newfound savior Noel fending off rabid, greedy students in a martial arts class and the adjoining yoga class. Some of the details are choice: Along Hollywood Boulevard, the six-years-in-the-future Chinese Theatre is showing “Robo-President III: Impeach This!” while Katie’s testy encounter, on a city bus, with a terrible father of a fledgling child actress sets up Katie’s own story easily and well.
And then there’s everything that’s sort of a drag about “Jackpot!” Screenwriter Yescombe, who has worked in video games, treats his action beats like he’s playing the Nintendo version of his own narrative. Director Paul Feig handles the mayhem well enough (it’s plenty violent without being sadistic) but he can’t do much about the replay/start over/here we go again nature of the enterprise.
Feig made, among others, “Bridesmaids” and “Spy,” two actually, solidly good comedies. Here, even with a cast ready to rumble in terms of riffing and improvising — the end credit outtakes indicate it was more fun to make than to watch — the results grow action-heavy, not action-comedy-heavy, let alone comedy-heavy. Bone-crunching’s easy; getting laughs with it is much harder. Also, I’m no logician, but the movie’s attempts to explain Katie’s complete ignorance about the newly lethal lottery regulations are ridiculous.
Most of “Jackpot” was shot in good ‘ol, affordable, looks-nothing-like-L.A. Atlanta, and the outtakes include a Cena improv in which he wonders why the movie feels like it’s taking place in the wrong city. Oh, well. He and Awkwafina make weirdly lovely sense together as personalities and performers and they keep this frenetic burlesque of “The Purge” from falling apart completely. Mayeri has the best line, though: When quick-witted Katie throws shade on her now-murderous Airbnb host’s weak improv skills, the would-be actress counters with, “I’m great at improv! I just need time to prepare!”
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'JACKPOT!'
2.5 stars (out of 4)
MPA rating: R (for pervasive language, violence, and sexual references)
Running time: 1:46
How to watch: Prime Video
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