Jackpot Movie review - John Cena can't save Paul Feig's brainless flick (By Shayen Unadkat)

 “JACKPOT,” Paul Feig’s latest comic flick starring John Cena and Awkwafina, lacks the humor and logic to keep audiences satisfied by the time the credits roll. There is fun to be had at times, but the movie insults audiences by crossing the borders of logic without adding much heart or originality to the narrative.

The movie follows Awkwafina’s Katie who, in a distant future where a new lottery has been established in which killing the winner grants you the money, becomes the city’s target after finding a winning ticket in her pocket. Right from the get-go, you can tell this film embraces a premise that just won’t really work. The whole narrative could have been solved in mere minutes by hiding out or wearing masks when being hunted down as a “Jackpot winner,” but it’s here where the audience insult comes into play as some absurdly over-the-top action sequences and ridiculous humor are pushed out to fill a whole runtime. And for most of it, you’ll be scratching your head and trying to answer the question as to why the film was executed this way, or why it was even made in the first place.

The writing is also very illogical and lazy, fostering action and humor that doesn’t even land instead of making plot beats streamlined and coherent. It’s set a few years into the future in Los Angeles, but we don’t explore any of this backdrop and the potential societal changes that come with it that could’ve been relevant to the plot. I mean, come on, our protagonist ends up finding a winning lottery ticket in clothes she rented, urging you to question why someone would leave a lottery ticket in clothes they are giving away? It’s the 21st century, and inflation is only getting worse. Paul Feig—no one would do that.

The action sequences in themselves are fun to an extent for a streaming movie, and that’s purely due to John Cena’s presence as a personal bodyguard for Awkwafina’s Katie. There is some uniqueness in the choreography, but as mentioned before, they go over the top and cross the border of logic often. The stakes hardly develop too, which is extremely disappointing.

Paul Feig is known for comedy, so the main thing here is that the jokes land. Sadly though, 90 percent of them do not, and this links to the poor writing on display. The amalgamation between humor and action, as well as telling a semi-decent story, is absent. The viewer might find solace in how unpredictable the film is because of this silliness, but if you do switch on your brain for a little—despite it might getting lost in some of the break-free action (yeah, this movie does not let you breathe)—you’ll be able to see all the little twists and turns coming from a mile out.

Awkwafina isn’t at her best here and often comes across as irritating at times. Cena is great, but the rest of the cast just lacks energy, as if they were waiting for filming to be over and it was time to collect their paychecks.

Ultimately, “Jackpot” just sucks. It’s got a lot of fun action, but everything else is abhorrent. Jokes don’t land, and all logic is just blown out the window with a bland and silly plot that will make you question why you’re even watching a film like this in the first place.