(2001)
2.5
Jason Clark
Jackpot is a rare bird of a movie to be seen these days, a film that takes its time establishing characters and laying out its intentions slowly and without gimmicks. But the problem with the film is that it fails to tell an engaging story, meandering off-track so often that the viewer grows tired of its inconsistencies. The best thing about the movie is the way it looks; director Michael Polish has used the film's innovative 24P HDTV camera to remarkably good effect, aptly capturing the nowheresville loneliness of the road trip taken by the lead characters. But like the Polish brothers' first effort, the intriguing but terminally slow-moving Twin Falls Idaho, this film is languid and repetitive, and the characterizations are not interesting enough to keep one's attention. The film probably won't make too many fans of female audiences either, as every woman in the picture is either a stereotypical bitch or a whore, pointing to the lack of sensitivity on the part of the filmmakers, who often show the characters' darker behavior without giving much of an alternative. Jackpot won the Best Feature award for New American Cinema at the 2001 Seattle International Film Festival.
Jackpot on AllMovie
Jackpot (2001)
