Criticism: Jackpot! does not live up to its state-approved murder lottery concept

Jackpot! – Prime Video’s new attempt at an original movie – is… weird.

Not as worrying as Tim Walz recently described the current state of the Republican Party in the USA.

It's strange, as if you almost enjoy the high-flown prank before the illusion is shattered by stunted dialogue and misguided morals.

In short: In 2026, the United States entered a new Great Depression and the state of California needed money so badly that it created the California State Lottery (CSL).

The CSL works like any other lottery, except that it involves legal murder.

After the announcement, the lottery winner must stay alive for 24 hours despite an angry mob to collect his winnings.

If one of the angry mob kills the winner before time runs out, that person gets the prize instead.

And an annoying drone informs lottery participants about the location of the winner so that he or she does not disappear into the desert.

We meet our protagonist Katie (Awkwafina) in 2030, four years after the beginning of the Purge-lite phase, when she returns to LA to revive her acting career after the death of her mother.

When a sewage accident in her disgusting Airbnb forces her to wear her host's clothes to an audition, Katie accidentally gets into the CSL via the thumbprint-activated ticket in her borrowed pants. Almost immediately, that same talkative ticket chooses Katie as the new lottery winner.

Her fortune is now worth $3.6 billion, and every grandmother wants to kill her to get the bounty.

Just as Katie tries to fend off a leisure center full of would-be assassins, Noel (John Cena) swoops in. He's a muscular, suit-clad savior who guarantees Katie's survival – for just 10 percent of her winnings.

This sets off a series of events, including a fantastic sprint to the panic room by a certain Machine Gun Kelly. While the filmmakers treat this like a huge celebrity cameo, its inclusion rather dates the film. To most people, MGK is simply the guy Eminem beat up during a tête-à-tête with a white rapper.

The dream team of Katie and Noel ends up at the mercy of Louis Lewis (Simu Liu, who does most of the acting in his turtleneck sweater), a big shot from Noel's past who runs a large company that also protects jackpots – for a nominal 30 percent of their profits.

To enjoy Jackpot! even a little, you have to accept from the start that the CSL makes little to no sense.

How does the government make money off of this? Who knows! They don't even solve the problem by showing someone making money from pay-per-view live streams like in Nerve (2016). Why did they show a murder when they could just play the regular lottery? Shut up! We're trying to make jokes about how stupid people are these days!

Why is every person Noel and Katie meet a master of martial arts and/or knife fighting? Because you can't use guns in Murder Lotto – of course! (Of course, it's never explained WHY guns are banned).

John Cena comes out on top of all the cast – he has the funniest lines (“I have an adult zoo membership and I use it.”) and gets away with it with his tried and tested charm.

Poor Awkwafina tries to have fun, but is held back by the backstory involving her sick mother and her lost childhood, which brings the pace to an abrupt halt every time she appears.

Director Paul Feig (Bridesmaids, The Heat) does his best to keep Jackpot! light and snappy, racing from scene to scene. His action sequences (which make up about 50 percent of Jackpot!'s running time) are serviceable, if a little repetitive, and mostly bloodless. There are plenty of stabbings, but they only produce red marks, and despite many fights that should have ended fatally, there are no bodies to be seen.

But to sell ultraviolence, you have to show ultraviolence somehow. The worst part is that there are too many shots of the legs, but hey, there are two female and two male victims, so at least the gender ratio is balanced.

Feig's measured direction miserably exposes writer Rob Yescombe's grim screenplay.

Before Jackpot!, Yescombe wrote mostly for video games, and it shows. Every other line is a standard line like “Is that a grenade in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?” or “It's time to close this account” when someone gets killed.

The timeline is also extremely questionable considering that 2026 is less than two years away, meaning it will be less than 24 months before all of California is committed to murder.

Even in dystopian films, where the government has legalized murder as a balm for a decaying society, there is usually some Commenting on the brutality of said bloodthirsty government. Not on Jackpot! Rather than placing even the slightest part of the blame on the powerful structures that sanctioned the murder lottery, the lasting moral lesson Yescombe teaches is that we should all be nicer to each other.

That's a bit much to ask, considering Yescombe portrays almost every single supporting character as a mindless, cruel LA idiot who would gladly murder an innocent for a chance at the Kardashian lifestyle.

It's a shame that Jackpot! doesn't quite live up to its promising premise, because in an alternate universe, there's a version of the film that's gory and thrilling enough that you could overlook the plot holes.

It's still possible to find some joy in the Jackpot! version of this universe, but first you might want to check your brain at the door.

Jackpot! is now streaming on Prime Video.