2024-08-16 15:17:59
The concept is as extreme as it is crazy: in the not-too-distant future, participants in a major lottery in the city of Los Angeles have the chance to win the big prize even if they didn’t win it in the first place. The key, quite simply, is to find and kill the winner before the sun goes down, a perfectly legal homicide that automatically turns the perpetrator of the non-crime into the new and final winner of the draw. The only prohibition present in the rules is the use of firearms, as if to give the poor guy a little changüí. The idea is not part of a dystopian science fiction film, although it could well be, but of the Paul Feig’s new feature filmspecialist in the field of comedy Since the times of the mythical and seminal television series Freaks and Geekscreated by him and produced by another legend of audiovisual humor, Judd Apatow.
In Jackpot: deadly lotterywhich will be available from this Friday 15th on the Prime Video platformKatie, an aspiring actress played by American comedian and rapper Awkwafina (born Nora Lum, of Chinese and South Korean descent) accidentally turns out to be the eventual winner of the award, and it’s not too many minutes into the film before a horde of ordinary citizens begin to pursue her with less than friendly intentions, as evidenced by the axes, knives and other sharp objects that move menacingly in their hands. Enter Noel (the Former WWE wrestler and actor in his own right John Cena), a specialist in protecting poor lottery winners, in exchange of course for a percentage of the prize pool.
And right there the action starts, which in the case of Jackpot has one foot planted in the typical martial arts choreographies of Asian cinema, and the other in the old and never-dead slapstickthe style of physical comedy that the likes of Mack Sennett, Charles Chaplin, and Buster Keaton, among many others, perfected into a true fine art a century ago. “Well, I’m an old-school guy when it comes to comedy. I love physical comedy; my favorite things have always been Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Jackie Chan movies. I think it’s a very fun art form.” In a one-on-one conversation with Page/12 From Los Angeles, Paul Feig reflects on his relationship with cinematic humor, which led to different ports in films such as Ladies at War, Armed and dangerous girls and the 2016 remake of Ghostbustersas well as series directed and/or produced by him such as The Office y Arrested Development.
“Even though comedy has become largely a verbal art – and I love that too – at the same time I think that if you can make people laugh with words and actions, you’re in a perfect universe. It’s true that physical comedy can sometimes feel a bit crude, but the trick is to keep it believable, even if what you’re watching is nonsense. I mean that in the sense of thinking, as a viewer, that a certain character would react without hesitation in such and such a way to a certain situation. It’s about bringing madness down to earth”.
Sitting next to the director, screenwriter and producer, Awkafina – who in parallel to her career as a singer has participated in feature films such as Ocean’s Eight: The Swindlers y Crazy Millionairesthe film that definitively launched his career– he says that “working alongside John Cena and Paul Feig was truly a dream come true”. “John is like a powerhouse: he’s a great actor and a great guy. He’s also funny but very thoughtful. Paul has a very interesting way of working, because we usually did one take exactly as it was written in the script and then several more, with complete freedom to improvise. And even later we had time to try out alternative versions of those same takes, with things that I really don’t know where they came from. So funny that it destroyed me.”
-What was it that attracted you to the script, which you did not participate in this time and was written alone by Rob Yescombe?
Paul Feig: -What I was fundamentally attracted to was that the story gave me the opportunity to do the things I like to do. Physical comedy, of course, but also the fact that behind all the fun, there are characters with heart and emotions. That’s what I’ve always looked for in my films. You never know what the audience wants to see, and many times you have to guess, but sometimes you can feel that something might work. At least it’s something I would like to see. And that’s what happened to me with Jackpotwhose script I did not write but interested me even as a potential viewer.
-The basic concept of the story, which propels many physical action sequences, with endless hits, falls and trips, and also a villain disguised with good intentions, seems totally crazy. Although… the world is so strange these days that, at times, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched that something like this could happen.
P.F.: -I have faith in humanity and I don’t think we’ll get to that point, although at the same time I’m of the opinion that a part of the world’s population would have no problem being part of something like that. But anyway: the truth is that in the universe of the film, whoever buys a lottery ticket knows what they’re getting into. (laughs).
Help us: I too have faith in humanity, but I also believe that greed can drive us a little crazy.