Awkwafina and John Cena headline this ridiculous but fun action comedy from director Paul Feig.
PLOT: 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. When Katie Kim moves to Los Angeles, she mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket. Desperate to survive the hordes of jackpot hunters, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy who will do everything in his power to get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize. However, Noel must face off with his slick rival Louis Lewis, who also seeks to collect Katie’s commission at all costs.
REVIEW: For years, August was the dumping ground for the summer movie season. As kids prepare to go back to school, the weakest summer releases would hit the big screen to offer counter-programming to the blockbuster hits from July. With Deadpool & Wolverine still dominating multiplexes and Alien: Romulus and The Crow coming our way, the big screen is home to mainly action and genre fare, with It Ends With Us thrown in for the romance crowd. That means if you want to see something funny, you must turn to streaming. The new Paul Feig movie Jackpot! is a comedic twist on The Purge, chock full of over-the-top violence and genuine laughs, even if the overall movie is pretty formulaic and familiar. Jackpot! is far from marquee entertainment, but it benefits from the charisma and chemistry of leads Awkwafina and John Cena.
Jackpot! opens with a quick synopsis that very shortly, the State of California legalized a monthly lottery where the winner is hunted down and murdered for their winnings. The only rule in place is that no guns can be used. The film then picks up in 2030 as Katie Kim (Awkwafina) returns home from caring for her mother to try her luck as an actress. Renting an awful AirBNB from fellow aspiring actress Shadi (Ayden Mayeri), Katie accidentally enrolls in the Grand Lottery and wins. She is then forced to face off with every Californian she crosses paths with as they try every method of murdering her that does not involve bullets. Enter Noel Cassidy (John Cena), a private Lottery bodyguard who Katie hires to protect her life in exchange for ten percent of the multi-billion dollar jackpot. What follows is fight scene after fight scene as the pair get to know one another while evading martial artists, costumed mascots, soccer moms, lunch ladies, and countless other people who are essentially the cinematic equivalent of NPCs.
As the film moves along at a brisk pace, Jackpot! focuses more on the chemistry between Awkwafina and John Cena as their characters begin to trust one another. Both have trust issues stemming from their pasts, Noel’s involving a more famous bodyguard whom he worked with years prior. Simu Liu plays Louis Lewis, Noel’s nemesis, who steps in to protect Katie when she and Noel back themselves into a literal corner. Liu plays a solid villain, and it is fun to see him and Awkwafina share a very different dynamic than they did in Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but this movie is reliant on Katie and Noel joining forces. Awkwafina often plays characters like Katie, while John Cena is very likable and lovable as the charmingly dorky Noel. Both actors look to have a lot of fun on screen, with the physical comedy bordering on cartoonish as Cena frequently gets to kick, throw, and drop people, including Katie. The fact that the film relies on every action scene featuring zero guns gives the fights a different feel than you would in a more serious film.
While there are some fun cameo roles from Seann William Scott, Triangle of Sadness’ Dolly de Leon, The Office‘s Leslie David Baker, and Colson Baker (aka Machine Gun Kelly), this movie relies mainly on Awkwafina and John Cena giving their all to the physical comedy. Jackpot! is chock full of profanity and violence but relatively little blood and gore. Because of how silly the movie can get, it often feels like it could have dropped the f-bombs and aimed at a teen audience. But, thanks to the R-rating, the profanity leads to some pretty funny moments. Aside from the swearing, Jackpot! relies on heavily choreographed fight sequences that feel like what we would get if the stunt team behind John Wick directed a live-action Looney Tunes project. At no point does this movie feel any semblance of realism and allows the movie to mine the stupidity of the concept for entertaining action.
The fact that Jackpot! feels like a movie version of games like Double Dragon or Final Fight may be due to screenwriter Rob Yescombe’s experience writing video games, including Farpoint, Rime, and Crysis 3. Yescombe has a sole feature film credit as screenwriter in 2021’s Outside the Wire starring Anthony Mackie, but Jackpot! may show his comfort zone is in comedy more than serious fare. While the blooper reel in the film’s credits heavily leans towards John Cena and Awkwafina leading the cast in improvising twists on the script, Yescombe’s concept is rooted in platform fighting games of the past. Like those games, the plot is very thin and reliant on succeeding in various stages riddled with faceless people to beat the crap out of. Director Paul Feig brings the same balance of comedy and action that he brought to The Heat and Spy with far fewer special effects than his 2016 version of Ghostbusters and The School for Good and Evil. Because Jackpot! is not reliant on guns or massive CGI spectacles, the stuntwork helps elevate the action.
Jackpot! works well as a distraction and timewaster for when you like low-stakes movies that will make you laugh while watching people get their asses kicked creatively. Had this movie been on the big screen, it probably would not have been worth the price of admission, but it is a far better streaming option than many other recent premieres. While the action almost feels repetitive in places, and the ending is a bit wobbly, the charm of John Cena saves this project. Awkwafina has mastered playing her brand of wrong-place-wrong-time characters as she and Cena work very well opposite one another. Is Jackpot! a good movie? Not really, but it is a fun little romp that will make you laugh far more than it will make you groan.
