Jackpot! is violent and vulgar, and it should be watched.  It should not be viewed by all audiences.  Specifically, the film should not be shown to minors.  However, if you are an adult and can handle some physically tense moments as well as crude language and jokes, then I assure you there is something here worth seeing.  In His infinite wisdom, God did not make a perfect society for us to inhabit.  Today’s movie accentuates the imperfections to an absurd degree, and I pray we never get to the point here on display.  What I am specifically talking about will become evident in my synopsis in the next paragraph.  The tragic aspect to this is that it speaks to truths about humanity today that I blame on further distancing ourselves from God.  God is love.  This is found in Scripture and has been repeated in recent years by some of our greatest spiritual leaders like Pope St. John Paul the Great.  Why so many choose to ignore this in pursuit of whatever fancies them from moment to moment is beyond me, but I offer them up to God.  Luckily, there are people like the two main characters in our flick, and what they inspire by the end is hopeful.

The rugged man (Seann William Scott) at the start is the most recent winner of California’s Jackpot!  According to the opening crawl, the financially desperate state has come up with a new way of doing the lottery.  The “winner” has to survive until sundown on “lottery day.”  Anyone can go after that person, kill him/her, and thereby take the grand prize for themselves.  And I do mean anyone, as we shall see.  There are some rules, though, the main one being that the use of firearms is not allowed.  With this kind of atmosphere permissive of mayhem, you can see why our rugged man is running for his life.  After dealing with a number of random people in the streets, he ends up in the home of Grandma Tala (Dolly de Leon), who is taking care of one of her grandchildren.  He thinks he is safe until he notices a drone hovering outside announcing that he is the vicinity.  Turning around, he finds Grandma Tala, who puts a gun to his forehead and pulls the trigger.  Instead of a bullet, he is dispatched by a metal spike that comes out of the barrel.  With that, Johnny Grand (Murray Hill), arrives to give her the winning check.  This is the insanity to which Katie Kim (Awkwafina) returns to Los Angeles, hoping to revive her career as an actor from some moderate success she enjoyed in the business as a child.  As mentioned in the introduction, her goodness is underscored when she sticks up for a little girl whose father (Adam Ray) is being overly critical of a poor audition.  Later, we learn that witnessing this abuse touches a nerve for Katie because her father took all the money she had made from her on camera work and left her and her mother.  Katie’s next stop is at the Airbnb she has booked while she tries to make it in showbusiness.  Her host, Shadi (Ayden Mayeri), is insane, not warning Katie about the leaky sewage in the apartment above and charging her guest for wearing the clothes Katie is forced to borrow.  Thus, the next day Katie must go to her first audition sporting gold threads.  While sorting through the pockets of the unfamiliar pants, she finds a lottery ticket.  This futuristic chit takes her picture and thumb print, matching it to her identification.  Of course, this also happens to be lottery day.  Predictably, after a silly and unsuccessful performance, her name is picked as the recipient of the eponymous prize, which also happens to be the largest ever at $3.6 billion.  When this happens, everyone who has a ticket, including those at the studio, recognizes her and begin trying to kill her.  Because she had been away from California for so long taking care of her dying mother, she does not understand why all of the sudden so many are attacking her with deadly intent.  In the midst of the chaos, she is approached by Noel (John Cena).  He begins defending her, doing the initial work pro bono publico while he explains that for continued assistance, Katie must agree to give him ten percent of the winnings.  Since nobody seems trustworthy at the moment, and in light of her past, she is hesitant.  What convinces her to sign the contract is all the craziness happening.  It is so bad that instead of attempting to remain in the city until sundown, she wants to get out of this so-called “game.”  Though this means that Noel would not get any money, he agrees to bring her outside of the city, which would let her live but forfeit the cash.  He further earns her trust later by talking about how he gives away a lot of the money he earns from what would otherwise be a lucrative business to the families he had victimized when he was a mercenary.  Speaking of being a soldier for hire, his former comrade, Louis Lewis (Simu Liu), who runs a competing lottery protection company, eventually has to save Katie and Noel.  Though it had been Noel’s idea, eventually he suggests that the reason Louis has been so successful is that he is killing his clients and taking all the money for himself.  When Louis resists Katie’s insistence that Noel be allowed to accompany her to a protected area, it tells her that Noel’s instinct is correct.  Stealing one of Louis’ cars, she tries to make it out of the city, but is forced to return when Louis threatens Noel’s life.  She turns around with only two hours remaining until sundown.  Unfortunately, much of the rest of the population of Los Angeles learns of her destination, and it soon turns into pandemonium.  During it, Louis has Katie cornered in rigging above a stage.  She escapes by pulling the pins out of grenades hidden in his suit coat, but she falls from several feet.  She is caught, though, by her many fans just as time runs out on her near-death sentence.

Whenever I describe a movie like Jackpot!, I always feel like my synopsis leaves much to be desired.  This time, this is not confined to my inability to relate humor.  I cannot say that I laughed much while watching it, but the ending did have me smiling.  With so many people out to harm Katie, you can forget that there might be anyone out there like those who catch her in the closing minutes.  While the depravity of society is overplayed for comedic purposes, there are times when we can feel friendless in what appears to be an uncaring world.  At times, she feels despair, which is a lack of hope, and therefore a sin.  I hesitated for a moment to label it as such because there is the perception that sin is abnormal.  If only that were the case, but luckily we have Confession when our hearts finally lead us to contriteness.  Contriteness comes from a place of empathy, and that is something we see often in the film.  There is what Katie does on the bus for the little girl.  For Noel, I should add that he turns the people he renders unconscious on their sides or front so that they do not swallow their tongue and choke.  What stands out most about these two, but particularly Noel, is that they genuinely care about others.  As Katie points out a couple of times, Noel has every opportunity to legally murder her and become a billionaire.  Probably, any of us put into a similar situation would be tempted to forego any contract and become rich.  I hope that is not the case because, as a security guard (Leslie David Baker) who tried to hide Katie put it, this lottery system is immoral.  I hope that you know that murder is a sin, regardless of whatever legal system is in place.  Though all sin is abhorrent to God because it means separation from Him, doing so in the name of profit is like a double whammy because it involves greed.  Such feelings display a lack of care for our fellow man, and that is essentially the enemy in this film.  God wants us to do better, and despite its warts, this film shows us that it is possible.

I chose Jackpot! because I thought it would speak to themes of greed as I have discussed to this point in the review.  My assumptions proved to be correct, but I did not expect to be touched as I was in the final scene.  Could there have been less gratuitousness in it?  Certainly, and it is sad that Hollywood feels that it needs to resort to such antics in order to get a laugh.  Having said all this, I still recommend it.