The year is 2030. We’re in Los Angeles, where a new lottery game is wreaking havoc. It’s the California Grand Lottery that was started as an afterthought in the aftermath of the Great Depression, set to take place in 2026. The point is that if you become the lucky person with the winning ticket, you have to survive until sunset, because anyone around you can track the location and get it. But guns are not allowed. Jackpot goes further on this silly, Squid Game-ish, video game concept premise, with Awkwafina as the unfortunate lead with a billion dollars. (Also read: Paul Feig’s exclusive interview: ‘I don’t think I would have done Jackpot if it was more cynical about humanity’)
Base
Director Paul Feig found success in 2011 with his feature film Bridesmaids, in which a gang of girlfriends come to terms with their realities. That sense of reality is completely missing in Jackpot, which prioritizes action-comedy over long-term character development. When we first meet Awkwafina’s Katie Kim, she’s an aspiring actress who gets pickpocketed in broad daylight. She doesn’t seem to know anything about lotteries, and when she becomes the lucky winner during a terrible audition, everything goes awry.
But the catch is that Katie Kim doesn’t even want to be rich? So Katie doesn’t want to be rich and famous without doing anything, but she is not sure if she wants to work (as an actor). So what does she want? She doesn’t even know.
Meanwhile, she meets a freelance bodyguard named Noel (John Cena), who arrives just before Katie faints while running away. The deal is that he doesn’t want to kill her, but will save her only if there is a 10 percent commission. She reluctantly agrees, yet she has no clue what is going on. Cue elaborate action gags, which fail to add any laughs. There’s also Simu Liu who plays a suspicious guy from the Lottery Protection Agency. He wants a piece of the cake himself. Even Machine Gun Kelly and Dolly de Leon appear in cameo roles, which fail to add any sense of control to the frantic and unnecessarily exaggerated premise.
final thoughts
As much as Awkwafina tries to save the day with her physical comedy and spectacular action sequences, Jackpot! is a waste at its own game. It doesn’t know what it wants to say about the future, what to make of the unique case of capitalism, or how it leads to instability and fear. The near future in Jackpot! looks bleak, but when the film wants to laugh at the expense of that bleakness, what other argument can you make?
Good humor doesn’t counteract the constant need to survive. But good humor isn’t in the film’s favor here either. Jackpot!’s makers seem blind to these questions, and instead, want the audience to invest in the fun ride, and wish for the duo to survive. Jackpot! isn’t the winner it wants to be, and it’s a waste of potential displayed by the dependable Awkwafina.
Jackpot! is available to stream on Prime Video.
