Paul Feig, Awkawfina, and John Cena Team Up to Try for an Action-Comedy Jackpot!
Is there a more beloved genre with a track record as bad as the American action comedy? Reinvigorated in the 1980s by the public’s desire to see Eddie Murphy be funny, but not that funny, in between stunts that are exciting, but not that exciting, the action comedy clung to the coattails of Beverly Hills Cop for at least a decade and a half past that movie’s release, and continues to make periodic comeback attempts. (Even Murphy himself has had difficulty getting the balance right since then.) Typically, even studiously following the formula results in movies too cacophonous to work as comedy, or too shticky to satisfy as action. (Not to mention the scant number of stars who can work in both genres at once.) Due credit, then, to Paul Feig’s new action-comedy romp, which also rampages through the posh environs of Beverly Hills: Jackpot! has no trouble integrating the two genres into sustained comic mayhem. In spirit, if not necessarily execution, this is the American version of an old Jackie Chan movie, where the action and the comedy become one and the same, not mismatched partners.
Feig and screenwriter Rob Yescombe arrive there, unexpectedly, by riffing on The Purge, perhaps comedy folks’ most beloved horror-movie premise. Here, in the not-too-distant future, an economically devastated California has enacted a monthly lottery with a huge payout and a grim gimmick: Once a winner is announced, other citizens have until sundown to attempt to kill that person (no guns or ammo allowed; close-quarters only). Any successful murderer will then be awarded the prize money instead, with no criminal repercussions for any participants. Into this mini-dystopia wanders Katie (Awkwafina), who rolls back into Los Angeles to resume her acting career after a long break, and unwittingly comes into possession of a winning ticket before even realizing that this death-game lotto exists.
Jackpot! doesn’t share Katie’s confusion, though it might be funnier if it did; instead, Jackpot! explains the whole deal upfront, detracting from the nightmare-logic surprise, and leaves Katie to eventually explain why she has no idea that her previous home state has its own Lotto Purge. (That reasoning is amusingly tossed-off, but might have been funnier if we were locked into Katie’s point of view). She explains this to Noel (John Cena), who arrives in the midst of the first, extended attack on Katie – at a skeezy casting office, naturally, joined by a yoga studio’s worth of fitness enthusiasts – to make her an offer: For 10% of her earnings, he’ll serve as her bodyguard, keeping her safe until sundown. Katie remains half-convinced she should just escape the state and abdicate the money, but the daft genius of this high-low concept is that it remains the same no matter what she decides: Cena and Awkwafina banter and battle their way through an endless supply of violent normies-turned-maniacs.