Jackpot!: No winners here

Jackpot! (2024) • View trailer

No stars: TURKEY. Rated R, for violence, vulgar sexual content, and pervasive profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

I thought Trap would be the summer’s worst movie.

 

But no; this abysmal, live-action cartoon defies description. (I’ll nonetheless give it a shot.)

 

Although Katie (Awkwafina) and Noel (John Cena) cleverly think to hide in a rich
musician's panic room, there's still the matter of closing the door before their hundreds
of pursuers force their way inside.

The budget apparently came from what all involved pooled from their weekly lunch money. Sets and locations are limited to existing Los Angeles-area venues, each briefly closed for the 15 minutes required to shoot one take of each scene. Most “costumes” go no further than street clothes.

Aside from the top half-dozen roles, all other characters appear to have been cast with random folks snatched from the streets; they certainly can’t act a whit. They aren’t even granted names in the cast list; they’re instead billed as Scary Goth Guy, Baby Puppeteer, Asshole Dad, Food Truck Guy, Bald Alley Cop, and so forth.

 

Paul Feig hardly warrants his credit as director; he appears to have told cinematographer John Schwartzman to point the camera, turn it on, and film whatever each untrained idiot felt like doing at that particular moment.

 

Rob Yescombe similarly doesn’t deserve to be acknowledged for his so-called script, because most — all? — of the dialogue appears to have been improvised on the spot. And quite badly, in most cases. It’s the sort of “banter” that regards relentless F-bombs as the height of comedy.

 

This may be the worst case of lunatics running the asylum ever foisted on an unsuspecting public. Grade-school theater productions are more convincing.

 

Until now, I’d have believed Awkwafina incapable of making a bad movie, and possessing the good sense to avoid anything that smelled of one. (Wrong again.)

 

As a sidebar, I’ve never cared for the tasteless “state-sanctioned murder as a cathartic escape valve” subgenre that has become popular of late. Japan’s Battle Royale, unleashed in 2000, started this dystopian trend;  2013’s The Purge and its (thus far) five sequels turned it into a deplorable franchise. By the time South Korea’s Squid Game came along, three years ago, the concept had become mainstream ... which doesn’t say anything good about human nature.

 

This pathetic turkey joins their ranks. It might be the most shameful yet, since it’s supposed to be a comedy.

 

Confess, Fletch: Hamm on wry

Confess, Fletch (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R for profanity, sexual content and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.28.22

Well, this is a nice surprise.

 

Beloved literary characters rarely get a second chance, if their debut leap to the big screen is sabotaged by arrogant studio execs catering to the whims of a Hot Star Of The Moment.

 

Fletch (Jon Hamm) isn't quite sure what to make of the larger-than-life Countess
Sylvia de Grassi (Marcia Gay Harden), particularly since she's apt to become his
future mother-in-law.

Exhibit A: Author Lawrence Block’s gentleman cat burglar/detective, Bernie Rhodenbarr, who became Bernice when Whoopi Goldberg wound up starring in 1987’s absolutely dreadful Burglar. No surprise, Bernie’s subsequent adventures have remained within the safe confines of two covers.

The late and greatly lamented Sue Grafton, author of the beloved Kinsey Milhone “alphabet mysteries,” famously refused to entertain any sort of screen adaptation. She knew full well, having worked in Hollywood earlier in her career, how often a property gets ruined by meddling hands determined to “improve” a writer’s work.

 

At first blush, Chevy Chase seemed an ideal choice as Gregory McDonald’s rogue investigative journalist, Irwin Maurice Fletcher, and 1985’s Fletch was tolerable. But the deplorable 1989 sequel succumbed to Chase’s disguise-overkill vanity, and the character subsequently languished in development hell.

 

Until now.

 

Jon Hamm is spot-on as Fletch, radiating grizzled charm and just enough snark; his comic timing is well-suited to this amusing script’s many cheeky, insubordinate and downright smart-assed one-liners. 

 

Director Greg Mottola, admired ever since 2009’s under-appreciated Adventureland, has just the right touch for this material. He and co-scripter Zev Borow simplified the book a bit, and introduced some different supporting characters, but all essential plot points are in place; in several cases, they even retained McDonald’s dialogue.

 

The story opens in Rome, where Fletch has become engaged to the voluptuous Angela de Grassi (Lorenza Izzo), whose father has been kidnapped; the ransom demand is a Picasso from the Count’s famed art collection. Unfortunately, other parties unknown have stolen the entire collection, which leaves Angela frantic. 

 

She asks Fletch to liaise with an art broker in Boston, where the Picasso is rumored to have surfaced. He duly flies to Boston, arriving late in the evening; he walks into the apartment Angela has arranged for his stay … and finds a dead woman in the living room.

 

Fletch duly calls the police — an amusing conversation that sets the tone for what will follow — and soon finds himself in the cynical cross-hairs of Inspector Morris Monroe (Roy Wood Jr.) and his recently minted partner, Griz (Ayden Mayeri).

 

(Morris is a replacement for the book’s Inspector Flynn, who is missed … but no matter.)