2024 - JACKPOT, typical streaming comedy

This lame action comedy coming from the world of streaming, is a typical streaming movie.  Cable TV aka "Linear TV" continues to die on the vine as the public migrates to streaming. These streaming shows should provide more original entertainment since they are not subject to a lot of the censorship rules linear TV has put up with.  But in their desire to flood their streaming channels, the viewers end up with some stupid junk like this.

Jackpot is a typical streaming movie, it has a high concept idea but presents it in the blandest way possible.  There is a plot such that it is. In the future, anyone drawing a winning  lottery ticket has to spend the first 24 hours ducking the general public which in this case is trying to kill the winner.  The person who kills the lottery winner gets the winning ticket and the original winner’s monetary so cue the unending action scenes.

The film is a mediocre action comedy, with decent actors trying to wring some humor out of this preposterous situation. In fact it's safe to say this movie is not funny. 

The lead actors Awkwafina and former wrestler John Cena seem like they want to make this silly film work but Jackpot gives them nothing to do. It's as if the writer Rob Yescombe and the director Paul Feig had absolutely no interest in making an entertaining popcorn film other than collecting an easy paycheck for this drivel

 

I'm not sure what happened to Paul Feig.  He was usually a fairly reliable director of entertaining comedies like Bridesmaids, Spy and A Simple Favor.  But lately he really seems to be struggling with making decent comedies.   Jackpot is extremely undemanding viewing.  As  I sat in front of the TV playing with my phone at the same time, I sort of watched it with neither a mild interest or a mild disinterest.

The running time is 106 minutes.