Movie Review: Jackpot! (2024) – Starring Awkwafina and John Cena
By Chris Sabga [E-Mail | Facebook | Website | X]
Lethal Lottery
Most films gradually ramp up the action and tension. “Jackpot!” goes in the other direction. The first half consists of a series of madcap sequences straight out of a video game. Then it slows down and takes time to breathe – giving us a chance to get to know the main characters – before speeding up again, of course, for the grand finale of the Grand Lottery.
In the near future, lottery winners are followed and targeted for 24 hours by both drones and crazed “fans” looking to get the billion-dollar bounty for themselves.
“Kill the winner before sundown and legally take their jackpot. The only rule? No guns. No bullets.”
This premise would be right at home in a horror series like “The Purge.” However, “Jackpot!” is an action-comedy.
Katie Kim (Awkwafina) is an aspiring actress who unwittingly finds herself the winner of the Grand Lottery after accidentally entering it. At first, in a series of comical scenes, she has no idea why all of Los Angeles is trying to kill her. Noel (John Cena) is the only person in the city who is willing to protect her – for 10% of her winnings, naturally.
The dialogue and humor is often juvenile, and Awkwafina tends to scream her lines at times. (Granted, her character has plenty to scream about!) But “Jackpot!” isn’t a movie designed to impress you with Shakespearian writing. This is all about zany sight gags and the surprising chemistry between ‘fina and Cena. I never would’ve imagined pairing them together, but like Kumail Nanjiani and Dave Bautista in “Stuber,” their odd couple dynamic works.
As Katie and Noel run and fight, she wonders what her life will be like if she survives the night. Does she even want to be an actress? After all, as one of the best lines in the film points out, if “wrestlers and YouTubers are movie stars,” then “anybody can do it, right?” (The joke here is that Cena and Awkwafina first rose to fame in wrestling and on YouTube, respectively.)
“Jackpot!” is not realistic. It is not meant to be. It resembles a live-action cartoon. Absurd acts of violence are quickly brushed off like paper cuts. Anything can happen, and does, which ends up becoming the film’s biggest strength. This is a world where people’s phones can be remotely turned into explosives and a celebrity like Machine Gun Kelly answers the door himself when random strangers show up at his house during a citywide killing spree.
| Release Date: August 15, 2024 (U.S.) • Rating: R • Genre: Action/Comedy • Running Time: 106 minutes • Director: Paul Feig • Cast: Awkwafina, John Cena, Ayden Mayeri, Donald Elise Watkins, Sam Asghari, and Simu Liu |
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