Jackpot! (2024) - Comedy with a Killer Premise

Paul Feig's action-comedy “Jackpot!” (formerly dubbed “Grand Death Lotto”) premiered on Prime Video in August 2024, and the controversial plot centers around a near-future California where a new, dystopian “Grand Lottery” allows people to legally claim a multi-billion dollar jackpot as long as they kill the winner before sundown. It's quite a thrilling and chaotic concept that I really admired.

Awkwafina plays Katie. She is seen in the film as a washed-up child actress who accidentally gets her hands on the winning ticket, skyrocketing her and attracting all eyes on her, but not in the good way. John Cena plays Noel. He takes the responsibility of being Katie’s “lottery protection agent”, even though she was reluctant about this at the beginning. He joins the insane “lottery survival” bid, agreeing to keep her alive until sunset and in return he'll have his own fare share of the winnings. Their bizarre alliance carries the film along as Liu plays Noel’s rival protector.

The movie did quite a great job in providing us with top action, not to forget the ribs cracking comedy also. Katie is just like a quarterback with the ball in her hands and an angry mob is after her, so she must do her best to make it to the other side of the line or she's going to get pounced upon. Except in this case, there are no teams, each player is on his or her own and she doesn't just get pounced upon, she actually gets killed (yeah, killed). As brutal as it sounds, it's a movie that people would end up laughing to while watching.

An aspect some viewers may find to be bit of a downside to the film is that the uniqueness of the premise did not seem quite executed well. But aside that, I take the movie to be a mindless comedy and I honestly did enjoy it. Another thing I just couldn't help but love was the chemistry between Awkwafina and John Cena. Their performances where on point and they both delivered comedic moments at perfect timings. Sure some of the action scenes were obviously unrealistic but I just found the choreography really engaging. It was a good dose of comedy for me, a maybe I a little bit of overdose, lol.

Anyways, the film is fundamentally based on people's preferences when it comes to comedy. But I believe if you have enjoyed Paul Feig's previous projects and love the comedy of Awkwafina and John Cena other movies of theirs, then the action pack may just be your cup of tea. I'm rating the movie 8/10. It is a light movie with loose ends which was a major aspect I ended up liking about the film. Sometimes all the seriousness can be suffocating, maybe sometimes we need something to loosen up that grip a little bit.

Images from IMDb