Paul Feig’s latest film, starring Awkwafina and John Cena, revels in a form of misanthropy that would require far more thought and courage to pull off.
Photo: Daniel McFadden/AMAZON MGM STUDIOS
I’m inclined to enjoy any movie that starts with Dolly de Leon shooting Seann William Scott in the forehead with a shotgun, but the new Amazon Prime film Jackpot! cannot live up to the promising first minutes. Perhaps surprising is that this film comes from the otherwise reliable director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, Tough girls, spy) and stars the ever-likable Awkwafina and the ever-fun John Cena. (Scott and de Leon, alas, only have cameo appearances.) Unfortunately, the film also seems to appeal to these artists’ worst instincts – with laugh-less gags, action slapstick that relies more on speed than visual wit, and a nonsensical plot with an aggravating need to constantly explain itself.
Jackpot! is set in a near future where Los Angeles has introduced a massive lottery with one major twist: once the winner is announced, anyone can kill them and claim the money for themselves. But you can’t shoot them with bullets. (Hence the cattle guns. Not to mention the baseball bats, knives, cleavers, axes, stun guns, etc.) Awkwafina plays Katie Kim, a former commercial child star who has just returned to town after taking time off to care for her ailing mother. She’s somehow remained blissfully unaware of this amazing lottery-related development, and first discovers she’s “won” right after an audition when a small army of blonde lookalikes suddenly try to kill her with stilettos. The same building also appears to house martial arts and yoga studios, leading to increasingly ridiculous action shenanigans before a muscle-bound, suit-clad Noel (Cena) seemingly appears out of nowhere to protect her. Noel is a freelance bodyguard who specializes in the security of lottery winners, and soon he’s swinging Katie around like a human hammer, beating up hordes of helpless attackers.
Those early scenes, in which the clueless Katie wonders why everyone is trying to kill her and Noel helps destroy her would-be killers, contain some fun stunts that might fool you into thinking you’re watching a light, lovably silly comedy. But as the story “unfolds,” it becomes clear that the filmmakers don’t have many ideas here, aside from the occasional non sequitur joke (some of which are improvised, if the bloopers in the end credits are to be believed) and constant shots of ordinary people suddenly pulling out guns at the sight of Katie (a gag that stops being funny after maybe the seventh time). Beyond that, it’s mostly just endless, disjointed scenes of poorly choreographed chaos, with brief breaks for awkwardly placed and poorly written emotional shading that somehow make the whole enterprise seem even more fake and cynical.
Yes, we’re supposed to rate these quickly forgotten, short-lived streaming comedies on some sort of unholy curve. After all, these movies aren’t meant to lure you into the theater; they’re there to serve as background noise while you fold clothes, check sports scores, or have meaningful conversations with your refrigerator. But Jackpot! is so shrill, so hectic, that you can’t switch off. Instead, it gets on your nerves. For the story to work, everyone in the film has to act like a moron. Katie, according to her backstory, doesn’t know what’s going on; Noel is a dim-witted, serious man, a thug with a good heart and a permanently glazed expression. The supporting characters, on the other hand, are persistently annoying – including Katie’s idiotic Airbnb host Shadi (Ayden Mayeri) and her even dumber boyfriend DJ (Donald Elise Watkins). These aren’t untalented actors; it seems like they were instructed to act that way. Interestingly, Simu Liu shows up as a sleazy tech bro at a high-end security firm, and he’s the only one who brings some interesting facets to his repulsive character.
The real problem with Jackpot! (apart from the inept direction, the unfunny script and the annoying characters) is that the whole film indulges in a kind of misanthropy that would require a lot more thought and courage to pull off. I wouldn’t be surprised if Feig takes a cue from Mike Judge’s Idiocracy before I turn to that topic. But Judge’s deliberately crass complaint (which somehow becomes more prescient and problematic by the day) was somehow about our rampant national rudeness and stupidity. In Jackpot!, The jabs at the general public are inventions and conveniences – cheap attacks that are intended to make us like the film’s unimaginative action jokes and its boring comedy.
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