Jackpot

This film is not just that typical on the road Middle America odyssey, with frequent stops in kitschy bars and dusty diners. Jackpot has a well written script with a strong focus on character development and interaction. Gries and Morris work well together as a fly-by-night duo. Gries' goofy but personable character allows his mediocre singing to be quite intriguing. The witty dialogue was enjoyable and consistent throughout the film. Most notable is Garret Morris' performance. The film was a clever attempt to show two zealous characters struggle for an unrealistic, waste of a goal. You can't help but be envious of their carefree attitude and at the same time loathe their divergence from ideal responsibilities. It's realism allows for a vicarious experience and an appreciation of great screenwriting.

I probably expected too much from Jackpot, since it was the winner of the 2002 IFP/West Indie Spirit Award for "Best Feature under $500,000 Budget". What I want to know, is how can you cast Jon Gries, Garrett Morris, Darryl Hannah, Adam Baldwin, Peggy Lipton, Mac Davis and Anthony Edwards in an indie film and still come out with a budget under $500,000? I thought I read somewhere that Edwards made approximately that much from one episode on "ER"?

There are several good acting performances in Jackpot, but nothing that jumped out at me as being something really noteworthy. A lot of publicity surrounded the fact that this film was shot in high-definition digital format and transferred to 35mm for theatrical release. The story starts out like it's going to be fairly interesting, then degenerates into something murky and confused. What is the point? Who is the protagonist? Who are we supposed to care about here?

I won't give a plot summary rehash here. Suffice it to say that the pink Cadillac is almost one of the high points and the pretentious monologue that provides a narrative soundover in places in this film was absolutely unappealing and unenlightening. Good performances by the name talent (who apparently appeared for very little financial compensation, if we are to believe the budget numbers) as well as good cinematography by M. David Mullen saved this film from the disaster that it might have been, if the Polish brothers had to make it for under $500,000 without benefit of all the name acting talent and Mullen's visual artistry. Apparently the overall response to the film was closer to mine than to the IFP voters: the film grossed less than $50,000 in nine weeks of very limited theatrical release.

If this was 1972, Jackpot would star Jack Nicholson as a talented, but down on his luck musician searching the dusty corners of the country looking for his big break and the pieces of his squandered life. Critics would hail it as being gritty and brave. But Jackpot takes place in the here and now. And while it's hero is searching the dusty corners of the country looking for his big break and the pieces of his squandered life, he is utterly talentless, mean spirited, self centered, and a pathetic jerk to boot. Needless to say, critics did hail Jackpot in the least. Which, I can't blame them for. A year and a half ago I left the theater feeling I experienced nothing more than a loss of $10. I felt the film was pointless, aimless, and without any real payoff. But, after 5 blocks on the walk home I realized, so are the lives of the characters.

Therein lies the beauty of the film. It's the man behind the legend that was never a legend to begin with (except in his own mind). It's a '70s anti-hero film except with the sense to show the "hero" for who he really is. Not a tortured genius. But, only a loser with delusion of tortured genius.

And, upon repeated viewing it's aimlessness becomes invisible. In fact, the script is militant in it's tightness. But, the direction never chooses to hit you over the head with it's plot or it's points.

Instead, opting to throw them about almost offhanded, allowing them to seep in (as it did for me, and perhaps not for others).

Jackpot is rich in it's rewards to those who pay attention. And besides, any film that can go from being terrible to great in 5 blocks has to be worth something.

Let's hope that the world in which "Jackpot" takes place isn't representative of how the Polish brothers feel about the world the rest of us live in, 'cause Jackpot's world is an utterly inane one; one where attractive but shallow, dim-witted, and ironically, man-hating women inexplicably hop into bed at the drop of a hat with UNattractive, shallow, dim-witted, and ironically, women-hating men like Sunny Holiday (played by the always reliable, but embarrassed-to-be-here Jon Gries). At best, his character merits a five-minute short (maybe a great first-year film-school assignment about a dumb loser who senses he's a dumb loser and hates the fact that maybe he's a dumb loser); not a feature-length treatment. This film simply has nothing to say, as if the Polish's went to a computer that was programmed by a computer, gave it a set of circumstances surrounding a one-dimensional character and instructed it to write a full-length script to fill in the time between the beginning and the end (a computer with no capability of emotion, depth, reality or insight to the circumstances with which it was instructed to depict). It's like they did that, tossed in plenty of mean-spirited, immature, blandly-written chatter disguised as dialogue, found the first actor older than 15 who dared lend their name to the thankless role of Sunny Holiday, grabbed the nearest camera and started shooting. Of course, all that would require effort. *sigh* This film isn't even THAT ambitious.

So who is this Sunny Holiday? Sunny Holiday is an blatantly untalented singer who tries to "make it" in a cluttered profession which requires great talent in order to just survive (and he's trying not for the prospect of actually helping himself or his family, but for the most shallow and tired of reasons, "fame-n-fortune"). He's equipped with a never-ending self-centered and repulsive bitterness towards his efforts, sans any joy or appreciation about what he sees as an ordeal...thank god he wasn't crippled, too; then the Polish's would probably have him just roll on out of his crappy trailer in a wheelchair at the beginning and start shooting passersby...but then there would be no movie...not that there is one here). I got the feeling that the final scene could have been stuck somewhere in the abyss of the middle without notice, illustrating the chief flaw of this film (pretty much a fatal one, considering films are supposed to tell a story): The film doesn't tell a story. Almost every film, even the bad ones, tell some kind of story -- if they didn't, we'd have hundreds of thousands of screenwriters clogging our screens with their random thoughts; a lack of appreciation and regard for the act of Telling A Story...something the Coen brothers could probably pull off in their sleep with none of the self-congradulating, self-indulging lack of audience respect the Polish's display in "Jackpot". Maybe I'm being too harsh on the Polish brothers, maybe they just suffer from the same thing Sunny Holiday and all of us suffer from in some capacity: inability.

But we're not the ones charging 8 bucks to tell people what they already know.

For example: In one scene, when we (and one in a series of hop-into-bed-with-a-stranger-at-the-drop-of-a-hat-for-no-reason-whatsoever waitresses) find out the hard way that Sunny has a pre-mature ejaculation problem, we want to see how this problem affects him and/or the story, but when the next scene (a stock "morning after" scene) soon begins and the two act exactly as they would have without the previous scene, we realize, painfully, that that's about all the Polish's have to say about about pre-mature ejaculation: That it exists. Deep, guys! About this point in the film, I'm beginning to feel a lot like that waitress probably felt after Sunny climaxes on her before they even have their clothes off: used and abused.

"Jackpot" is hundreds of feet of exposed celluloid without a point; not really a "film". In a film, as in any artistic endeavor that requires money for us to behold, ANY point is certainly better than no point. (Even the equally-sour "Kids" had a point, hinted at subtley during the film, but made clearly and soundly at the very end, when it mattered most, rewarding us for sticking around, and sending us to out of the theatre and back to our lives THINKING, not wiping the sleep out of our eyes.)

Most of us can be repulsed and/or bored to death on a daily basis in our own lives absolutely free. So do what Sunny Holiday never did: Stay home and save your money!

This flashback, head trip style is confusing at first but really works at the story unfolds. Once we find Sunny Holiday (Jon Gries, great job by the way) sitting in his car rewinding and fast forwarding his tape over and over until finally interrupted by his karoake tour manager, Les (Garrett Morris) you realize he is as obsessive compulsive as his brother (played by Anthony Edwards and Rick Oberton).

Funny moments besides a few fart jokes include Mac Davis not feeling his own real life his BABY DON'T GET HOOKED ON ME does not feel right for him.