Brief Story Line
Story was set in the year 2030 where in California, there was a new kind of lottery with huge reward. The regulation of the lottery stated that any one who had the losing ticket could kill the winner and ultimately claim the winning money as long as it was done before sundown. Katie Kim (Awkwafina - Kung Fu Panda 4, Raya and the Last Dragon etc) who just came to Los Angeles unexpectedly won the lottery and became the target of so many people.
In order to save her life, Katie decided to accept the service of Noel (John Cena - Ricky Stanicky, Peacemaker TV series etc), a lottery protection agent who expected a share of her winning. Things got complicated with the involvement of Noel's competition Louis Lewis (Simu Liu - Atlas, One True Loves etc) who was the leader of the professional and largest protection agency.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
As you could read on the above story line, the premise was very unique and obviously would create a lot of chaos, especially when you combine Awkwafina and John Cena who is not afraid to let loose and play in comedic roles. Throughout the movie, there were plenty of comical moments that made me chuckled or laughed a bit, but there was no scene that was truly hilarious for me. Thing is, although they were pretty amusing, somehow I felt their closeness was not too convincing. It seemed like they were trying too hard to compliment each other especially on the emotional side (that scene when they tried to open up was very flat to me personally). I think they were a lot better when they were joking around or doing the action.
In term of action, it was not disappointing. Even if they were not the very spectacular kind, it was still enjoyable to watch. John Cena as usual managed to use his capabilities to good effect while Awkwafina seemed decent few times as well. And it was also nice to see Simu Liu in here, which marked his second film collaboration with Awkwafina after Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, although his role here was rather generic. Aside from those names, there were support cast like Ayden Mayeri as the Airbnb host Shadi, Donald Elise Watkins as her boyfriend DJ and several others in minor capacity like comedian Murray Hill, youtuber Adam Ray, even Sean William Scott (Ice Age: Collission Course, The Rundown etc) and Colson Baker aka Machine Gun Kelly.
The movie had a duration of 104 minutes which I thought was sufficient to cover the story. It has an OK enough ending, albeit predictable. The closing credits was filled with various gags and jokes by the cast which was pretty fun. The film's director was Paul Feig who was experienced in directing comedy films like The Heat and Spy but also other genre like A Simple Favor and Last Christmas. It was written by Rob Yescombe whose writing credit included Outside the Wire. From what I could tell, critics were not impressed by the movie, while audience seemed a bit more relaxed.
Overall as an action comedy film, I felt it was quite entertaining. I like the original premise and the action was good enough while the comedy relied heavily on the dialogues involving Awkwafina and the goofing around of John Cena which were OK. It is definitely not one for the awards so no need to over analyze or expecting a deep and heavy type of movie but purely just for fun. However, I could not help thinking that maybe the premise would have been better if it's made into a dark thriller type instead of action comedy (or someone already did it?). Anyway if you just want to have a bit of fun after a hard day's work, this is the kind of movie that would please you like it did for me.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars
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