Few will argue that the country and a vast number of its citizens are facing hard economic times, what with huge unemployment numbers, the housing slump and low consumer confidence. While I haven't heard of any firm numbers to back this up, my guess is that the one industry that's probably thriving under such conditions is lottery playing.
After all, it only costs a dollar or so per ticket in exchange for the possibility of winning thousands or even millions of dollars, and who couldn't use that sort of cash right about now? Of course, the criticism of such gambling is that it takes advantage of the poor and/or under-educated folks out there who are desperate for financial help and/or don't realize the odds are so stacked against them that they'll likely never see a winning ticket or know anyone who's had one.
While not in the same ballpark as suddenly being a multi-millionaire, entertainment can also be a reprieve -- albeit temporary and much smaller -- from economic woes and distress, even if the price of movie tickets (and popcorn, soda, etc.) continues to go up. With those two factors in mind, imagine then a movie comedy about winning such a lottery but being unable to cash it in for several days, all while everyone and their brother suddenly becomes your best friend or criminal enemy.
The appropriately titled "Lottery Ticket" has that as its underlying plot and wants to be a 100-some minute reprieve from the economic doldrums its target audience faces. Sadly, it's anything but a winning ticket and instead comes off more like a pass straight to movie comedy Hell. It's not that it doesn't try to be funny, it's just that most every attempt is misguided or bungled to the point that the odds of finding a decent laugh equal those extremely long ones that accompany the lottery.
In it, Bow Wow plays the typical inner-city teen who dreams of a better life, but is stuck in a seemingly dead-end scenario. He has good friends (Brandon T. Jackson and Naturi Naughton), a loving grandmother (Loretta Divine) and a steady job working at the mall athletic shoe store. Yet, he seems to have no tangible future beyond his dreams, and the return of a local thug (Gbenga Akinnagbe) to the neighborhood means menacing harassment will soon commence once again.
But then he's talked into buying a ticket for the upcoming $370 million lottery, ends up winning it, and must contend with the fallout, complications and such that arise -- including all sorts of people wanting a piece of him and his newfound pie -- when he can't cash it in for several days due to it being a national holiday weekend. There's obviously a decent array of comedy fodder in such a setup, even if the premise of dealing with a sudden windfall is hardly novel.
The problem, though, isn't having enough such material with which to work. Instead, it's that this is one of those crass urban comedies that's an obvious insult to its mostly black targeted demographic. Heck, it's an insult to anyone of any race, gender or who possesses a real funny bone as it comes off as yet another obvious and obnoxious offering along the lines of the "Friday" movies, "Soul Plane" and the like that pander to those who get their jollies out of arch racial stereotypes.
Along with the generally decent protagonist who eventually succumbs to some of the pressure, there's the wise-cracking male best friend and the pretty girl friend (not "girlfriend") who's miffed that she's overlooked in favor of the sultry sexpot who wouldn't give the protagonist the time of day if not for his recent winning.
Throw in the aforementioned parolee, the neighborhood criminal godfather of sorts (and his thug who alternates between being menacing and a goofy fella who just wants to get down and have fun), the busybody gossip, the flamboyant preacher, the standard-issue grandmother, the somewhat scary recluse with a heart of gold and more, and you end up with a who's who amalgamation of stereotypical characters and caricatures from most any urban comedy.
If that's not bad enough, director Erik White -- who works from an awful script by Abdul Williams -- doesn't have the ability or desire to move beyond such stereotypes and thus deliverers nothing more than the apparently to-be-expected comedy tripe. That is, except for the similar obligatory moments that try to be poignant but stick out like obvious sore thumbs amongst the rest of the material. The plotting is bad, the dialogue is subpar, and the comedic timing is simply off.
That said, the odds probably aren't long that audiences who love such cinematic flotsam will find this latest offering entertaining to one degree or another. To everyone else, it's just additional proof that those responsible for such horrible films need to win the lottery so that they'll stop subjecting the masses to such offensive and not particularly funny material. "Lottery Ticket" rates as a 2 out of 10.
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