Director – Paul Feig, Screenplay – Rob Yescombe, Producers – Paul Feig, Laura Fischer, Jeff Kirschenbaum & Joe Roth, Photography – John Schwartzman, Music – Theodore Shapiro, Visual Effects Supervisor – Eric Bruneau, Visual Effects – Bot VFX (Supervisor – Sean Pollock) & Crafty Apes (Supervisors – Mark Bortolotto & Joshua LaCross), Special Effects Supervisor – J.D. Schwalm, Makeup Effects – KNB EFX Group, Inc, Production Design – Jefferson Sage, Action Choreography – James Young. Production Company – Roth Kirschenbaum/Feigco Entertainment/Big Indie Pictures.
Cast
Awkwafina (Katie Kim), John Cena (Noel Cassidy), Simi Liu (Louis Lewis), Ayden Mayeri (Shadi), Donald Elise Watkins (DJ), Seann William Scott (Rugged Man), Colson Baker (Machine Gun Kelly), Leslie David Baker (Earl the Fameland Guard), Becky Ann Baker (Sweet Irene), Adam Ray (Asshole Dad), Rylea Hendreschke (Asshole Dad’s Daughter), Dolly de Leon (Grandma Tata), Holmes (Constance the Ride Share Driver), Murray Hill (Johnny Grand)
Plot
The year 2030. Katie Kim arrives in Los Angeles hoping to make her breaks as an actress. She signs into the AirBNB rub by Shadi but her clothes are ruined by a sewage leak and she is forced to rent some of Shadi’s. At an audition, she breaks an e-ticket in the pocket of Shadi’s jacket and unwittingly enters herself into California’s Grand Lottery. The lottery is drawn and Katie is declared the winner. She is startled to find her face broadcast everywhere and then that everybody is suddenly trying to kill her. She finds a saviour in Noel Cassidy who says he will be her bodyguard for ten percent of her earnings. Katie is baffled as to what is going on until Noel explains that the lottery she has been placed into gives her a $3.6 billion jackpot, but this can be claimed by anybody who kills her before the end of the day. The two of them attempt to survive as Katie faces killers at every turn.
Jackpot! comes from Paul Feig, a former tv director who was behind the hit comedy Bridesmaids (2011) and some of Melissa McCarthy’s biggest solo vehicles – The Heat (2013) and Spy (2015). Feig previously ventured into genre material with the much-disliked all-girl remake of Ghostbusters (2016), the Christmas fantasy Last Christmas (2019) and The School for Good and Evil (2022). Jackpot! seems a lightweight film but it has managed to attract a reasonable cast line-up, not to mention has Hollywood heavy-hitter Joe Roth, behind Alice in Wonderland (2010), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), Maleficent (2014) and In the Heart of the Sea (2015), among others, as one of the producers.
Jackpot! feels like someone has conceived a comedy version of The Purge (2013) or one of its sequels. The idea of a jackpot where the entire state of California sets out to kill the winner in an effort to win millions has a comedy amusement that raises a brief smile but hardly seems much to make a film out of it. Certainly, it is one that leaves you straining to think of any plausible social scenario whereby such a system could be legalised. To be said in the film’s favour, it milks the set up for everything it can.
I am yet to be sold on Awkwafina as an actress. Here she plays an awkward, nerdy fish out of water character but seems badly miscast. Her entire role seems to consist of sarcastic backchat to John Cena and one-liner asides to the camera delivered in a hoarse voice – it feels as though she has sat down and studied Natasha Lyonne’s screen persona and set out to imitate her.
John Cena and Awkwafina face killers
There is a really grating scene early on set aboard a bus where Awkwafina goes and shames an abusive father by pretending to be a LAPD officer. It is a scene that feels as though it has been boiler-plated on to the film at the actress’s whim to puff up and make her character seem more heroic, but in actuality comes across with all the believability of nails scratching on a moral blackboard.
The rest of Jackpot! feels like people frenetically trying to make something work that might have seemed funny on paper and doubling down even when it doesn’t. And when it comes to Awkwafina, it is a case of an actress who causes the comedy in the film to singularly fail to lift off the ground.
What Jackpot! does have is some fast paced and extremely energetic fight scenes and car chases. This may well be one of the biggest films in the genre that has entirely sidestepped the label of Action Film. Part of this may well be because the emphasis is on comedy meaning that what we get is action where a great many people are fought and thrown about and intend serious harm, but nobody is actually hurt. Through it all, John Cena maintains an admirable straight face and after a while you can allow yourself to be carried along on the energy of the film.
