A new Paul Feig film is always cause for celebration in my book. The director who brought us Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, (the horribly underrated 2016) Ghostbusters, Last Christmas, and A Simple Favor always is doing something fun and inventive with the genres he explores. The problem with our current streaming landscape is that I found out two days ago that Paul Feig has a new film releasing this week. While I have some issues with it, Jackpot!, starring Awkwafina and John Cena, should absolutely be in theaters. This would play quite well theatrically in a crowd full of people in the middle of summer. However, I still had a fairly good time with it on my couch on a Thursday night.

Open on a dystopian near-future Los Angeles. The economy has tanked so badly, people are desperate for money, like more so than they are in current day America. Katie (Awkwafina) has moved to Los Angeles to become an actress. In the state of California, a new law is in place where whoever wins the lottery becomes a target for anyone to legally murder and collect their winnings before the end of a set time. And the winning ticket mistakenly makes it into Kate’s hands. She is approached by lottery protection agent Noel (Cena) who offers his services in exchange for a cut of her winnings. We follow the two as they try to survive the day no matter what it takes.

This is a deeply high-concept action comedy, and it feels like we forget the comedy some of the time. The comedic chemistry between Awkwafina and John Cena is stronger than you would think, and if Jackpot! works as a comedy, it’s due to them. Despite this being set in a recognizable Los Angeles (there’s a great joke about how nothing set in LA is filmed there), there is a lot of world building to establish the rules of this slightly dystopian world where everyone is acting normally despite the fact that the Purge is essentially happening. Part of me wonders if this was the pitch, ‘what if The Purge, but funny?’ And while this raises some haunting questions about where we’re headed as a society, I’ll commend Feig for always sticking to the lighter buddy-comedy tone, even if it doesn’t always work. He commits to the bit, and I can appreciate that.

The supporting cast is a bit wacky. We have rapper Machine Gun Kelly as himself, and he’s funnier than you would think. We have comedian Ayden Mayeri as the Airbnb host Katie rents from, who becomes one of her assailants. Simu Liu pops up as a sketchy figure from Noel’s past, and Sam Asghari, who I only know as Britney Spears’ ex, as a corrupt agent. 

The screenplay here is a bit heavy on exposition, and it has a lot of terrifying implications that make some of the comedy a bit difficult to swallow. But Feig is a smart enough comedy guy to know to let his actors improvise. As we frequently have with his films, we see alternate lines and bits throughout the credits, and it almost makes me retroactively like this movie more, because it’s clear everyone here was having quite a good time. Not all of the big gags land, but enough of them do. At no point did I want to shut this movie off and watch something else, so that’s pretty much all you need for a streaming release.

While I may have some issues with some of the story beats in Jackpot!, and while not all of the comedy lands, I will say the originality on display here make the film absolutely worth watching, and the film’s many action sequences are well staged and choreographed. It may not hit the kind of comedy heights of Feig’s earlier work, but is absolutely worth 90-ish minutes of your time as something to watch at home. And it’s fun to see two unlikely leads like Awkwafina and John Cena manage to get the best out of one another in some of the most unexpected ways. The central duo is absolutely the strongest thing Jackpot! has going for it.