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- iHaveNet.com: Movie Reviews
It's hard out there for a kid from the projects who scores a $370 million lottery payoff, but must wait for the claim office to reopen (infernal federal holiday!).
Suddenly he has "a premature crack-baby felon" straight out of prison and willing -- eager, in fact -- to kill for it. Not to mention the notorious local Jezebel interested in the young man's company.
This is the premise of "Lottery Ticket," an ensemble comedy from a pair of first-time feature filmmaking collaborators, screenwriter Abdul Williams and director Erik White. You know what? This movie's good. It's fast, deftly paced and funny, and only some misjudged violence in the last lap keeps it from being better than good.
One foot in fantasyland, the other in the real world, the picture isn't out for anything except laughs, plus a little astute sociology. Virtually everyone on screen knows where to find those laughs, how to deliver them and how hard to push them -- i.e., not hard enough to tire us out before the leading character learns of his scary stroke of luck.
The film was shot in Atlanta but the locale is
In the opening scenes, lottery fever has hit the entire neighborhood, and Kevin, a
And then it sort of dies near the end. The increasing focus on sociopath Lorenzo (Gbenga Akinnagbe) is sour and frightening in a non-comic way, and I really do wish the filmmakers could rethink the grimly prolonged shot of Akinnagbe squeezing David's nethers. Also I would rethink the sound effect cue in this bit; some are just plain wrong.
I was perfectly happy keeping time with everybody else in "Lottery Ticket," notably the two leads (whose friendship is tested by the sudden arrival of millions) and Kevin's childhood pal, played by Naturi Naughton, as sincere and easygoing as Mike Epps is hilarious in his cameo as a self-interested Baptist minister, with one eye on his flock and the other on a future financed by the reluctant, newly wealthy "Moses of the projects." Epps' few minutes of screen time score. And then the movie dashes onward.
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, language including a drug reference, some violence and brief underage drinking).
Running time: 1:35.
Cast: Bow Wow (Kevin); Brandon T. Jackson (Benny); Naturi Naughton (Stacie); Keith David (Sweet Tee); Gbenga Akinnagbe (Lorenzo); Terry Crews (Jimmy); Loretta Devine (Grandma); Ice Cube (Mr. Washington); Mike Epps (the Rev. Taylor).
Credits: Directed by Erik White; written by Abdul Williams; produced by Mark Burg, Oren Koules, Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson and Matt Alvarez. A
Lottery Ticket Movie Review - Bow Wow & Brandon T. Jackson