JACKPOT!

Here's the hard part about this one: the messages are good, and the movie still isn't. JACKPOT! has genuinely funny moments and something real to say — about loyalty, trust, doing the right thing, and the way people lose their souls chasing money, power, and pleasure. When it lands those notes, it lands them well.

But you can't get to them without wading through more than 160 obscenities and profanities — including at least 115 "f" words and two that misuse the name of Jesus. Add intense action violence, crude sexual references, and drug content, and the good is simply buried.

Our judgment is plain: the negative content makes JACKPOT! excessive and unacceptable. A worthwhile theme doesn't redeem two-plus hours of raunch and profanity. So the practical answer is no — skip it, and don't feel you've missed anything your soul needed.

Los Angeles, 2030. Katie is a struggling actress — a former child star, back in a rundown, crime-ridden city with a bus ticket, six hundred dollars, and big dreams.

Then she unknowingly activates a winning lottery ticket she finds in the pocket of some rented clothes. There's a catch built into this futuristic society: until sundown, anyone who kills her can legally take her winnings. Alone and hunted by an entire city, the Grand Lottery winner has to rely on an amateur lottery protector to keep her alive. Mayhem, of course, ensues.

Three stars, and they're earned on craft. JACKPOT! is a slick, fast action comedy with a clever high-concept premise and some very funny moments. Director Paul Feig knows how to keep the mayhem moving, and the central odd-couple dynamic — a distrustful winner and the muscle-bound protector she can't quite believe is on the level — gives the chaos a human center.

The film even builds its action set-pieces with real invention, though the inventory is exhausting: knives, drill guns, grenades, swords, martial arts, car crashes, explosions. It's competent, energetic filmmaking.

That's exactly why the verdict stings. This isn't an incompetent movie we can wave off. It's a well-made one that drowns its own best ideas in excess.

Underneath the mayhem, JACKPOT! is trying to say something true. It stresses doing the right thing. Its heroes put each other and their moral sensibilities before money, repeatedly risking their lives to save one another. Katie is a former child actor who set her career aside to care for her ailing mother until her death — a quietly honorable detail. Once the pair come into wealth, they establish charities for those in need. There's even a moment where Katie heads for a "safe zone" marked by an enormous, lit cross.

The film also offers genuine insight into how people lose their minds — and their souls — chasing money, power, and pleasure. On that theme it aligns with Scripture and illustrates it well.

The movie includes a minor "transgender" character, who serves as the lottery host. We note it as a conviction of the work; weigh it as you will.

But the frame around all this is coarse: constant foul and crude language, relentless violence, and sexual crudeness that swamps the good. The film can name the emptiness of chasing riches, but it can't escape the world it satirizes. Jesus said it plainly: "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" (Luke 12:15). Paul warns that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils" (1 Timothy 6:10). JACKPOT! knows this — and still can't stop feeding on the excess it condemns.

There's a real idea in here — money can cost you your soul — and a few laughs worth having. But JACKPOT! smothers its own best insight under 176 obscenities, intense violence, and crude sex, which is why our verdict is skip it. Looking for something the whole family can enjoy tonight instead? Start with our latest family-friendly picks.