"Jackpot" is a German television film that had its film festival premiere back in 2020 already in Hof and pretty recently it had its television premiere here for the general public. Like the vast majority of small screen releases from my country, it runs for minimally under 1.5 hours. Kinda fitting though that this originally aired at a film festival the way big screen releases fo because many of the people working on his one here have enjoyed success with theatrical movies as well over the years. This applies for example to director Emily Atef whose career has been going on for almost two decades now. Despite her Iranian/French background, she has worked on German films since day one basically. But it's not the only kinda unusual thing about her career. You don't see it too often that a filmmakers releases quite a few theatrical movies, but then goes on mostly to work on television projects. The exception there would be 3 Tage in Quiberon, the film elaborating on Romy Schneider that won reall big here in Germany. Too big if you ask me. Marie Bäumer is not a talented actress by any means in my opinion and just profited a lot from the similarity between her and the character she portrays. If anybody deserves the praise really, it would be the make-up people. Or maybe also Atef for her writing. It was still only a solid movie. This one here is not. Maybe Atef should have written the screenplay herself and the outcome could have been better. We'll never know. But having Frédéric Hambalek take care of that department was not a good choice in retrospective because this film has quite a few poorly written and cringeworthy moments that no actor could save. I will get to those later on. In general, Hambalek is a surprising choice here because he has never worked with Atef before and also because his career so far, only one mildly known film perhaps, is nothing that really justifies the inclusion here and that he and the director have some kind of French background in common cannot be the only reason.
As we move on to the cast, the woman you see on the photo here is Rosalie Thomass. There is not much positive thing I can say about her either. I guess she really profits a lot from the debate that women/actresses do not have to be super thin and super attractive to have a great career. Something I certainly agree with, but with Thomas it is some kind of positive discrimination. I have seen her in a few films and she almost always plays the exact same character. Versatility and range seem almost inexistent. So over appreciating her normal body shape, the one man women have, people tend to forget that this alone is not enough to be a convincing actress. Shameful stuff. The good news, however, or slightly good news, is that at least she is not as unwatchably bad as for example in her recent Doris Dörrie film set in Asia. That does not mean though that she is good in here. Definitely not. It's just because she was so bad in the other one. The one who literally keeps this film from being an even bigger failure is Thomas Loibl (cool first name!). His range may also not be as good as his recognition value, but I think he is a somewhat talented actor overall and I like seeing him. With a weaker actor playing his key character, I probably would have taken away another two stars. Wish I could say only remotely the same about Friedrich Mücke, but his presence here is a true embarrassment. His character only exists to make Thomass and hers look better. I honestly have no idea why any actor with only the slightest bit of ambition would accept such a part. Then again, I have seen Mücke in other stuff and he was never particularly good, so I am not surprised at all he is the perhaps biggest supporting player here. And please don#t tell me he deserves a thumbs-up for being brave enough to show full frontal nudity.
One key issue with this film is the political correctness again that is all over the German media. I think it is pretty cringeworthy how they tried so hard here to come up with a strong female character. It's all make-believe. I already mentioned the nudity scene. This was basically to show us how he is vulnerable and how she is the (at least) equally strong 50% in the relationship. She is also a tough girl because she was in jail already. And she is physically strong, can carry her disabled man around. Also she has the heart in the right place as she loves him nonetheless and stayed with him despite his stupid accident for which nobody but himself is to blame. At the same time, she is a tough career woman working hard to make a living and get enough money to support her man's surgeries because he cannot anymore. And she is appreciated by her boss at work (the actor was okay, the role you'd expect Peter Kurth to see in) and of course the man is ready to basically appoint her as his successor one day because she is doing such a great job and because she is so reliable. The friendly joking around between these two linked to coffee as well I think was pretty embarrassing to watch by the way. There Hambalek's lack of sufficient experience fully showed. About as cringeworthy as the scene with the aforementioned big argument between Thomass' and Mücke's characters in this film where the former makes a direct reference to the accident that caused her man's disability. This, however, was at least as much because of Thomass' lack of talent to portray lead characters as it was to poor writing. One example that was 100% poor writing though was the violent meeting between Mücke's character and Eichhorn's character (the boss). Absolutely ridiculous, especially what the latter had to work with there how he fully defends his employee secretly taking the money and the words he had to say. Felt bad for the actor there with this "never happened" and "loyalty to one's woman" references. Unwatchable stuff. What was just as bad as that was Mücke's character, despite how determined he was, then going home and acting as if he decided that he will not talk to her boss instead of going to the police then. Unreal stuff.
One of the rare good moments was the violent encounter between Eichhorn's character and Loibl's character. The actors did a decent job there I would say, also some okay writing there with the words the latter uses to get closer to the former. Not one of many decent moments at all though. In general, the idea was pretty ridiculous how the bad guy was strolling around visiting those close to Thomass' character and threatening them. This includes most of all our protagonist's best friend who of course has the right ethnicity for being another strong female and loyal companion to our heroine and her foul mouth was supposed to be pretty cool or something. The shared tattoos that result into an image were already highly cringeworthy. This was basically nothing but showing off to the audience. But when things really got worse was when the bad guy visited said friend and the latter had to make this phone call and in the most pathetic and embarrassing manner managed to warn her friend. When a blind man could really see that she warned her in a (not so) subtle manner instead of making her feel safe. And then Loibl's character stitting right next to her even said something as if she did fine in following his orders exactly. Ridiculous stuff really. These scenes with him and said friend and the boss also felt fairly for the sake of it all I must say. They could have done a lot more with those, also with how we do not find out at all what happened to the characters afterwards. This is where the film felt a bit rushed, but they had to fit it into 88 minutes which is probably the explanation for that.
In any case, this is a really manipulative movie as well. All the poorly written ways in which they want to make sure that even the last audience member wants her to keep the money (commit a crime) were simply disgusting. Be it the bad guy killing the other woman early on, so we see Thomass' character as someone likable (in general a brave decision to depict violence and murder, but here it all feels for the sake of it), be it the ways in which the protagonist is clumsily depicted as a strong female (I mentioned those early on already, but you can also include her killshot in the end of her gritty gun action in general), be it the losses she has to suffer (especially her man at the very end, so she, the woman, is the only survivor) and there are many other examples. It's all a true embarrassment. I just mentioned the woman who gets killed early on. Well, there is another, namely the bad guy's partner and in order to really not offend any metoo follower, they made sure that this woman wants him to be a good guy and leave the money (i.e. Support Thomass' idea of keeping it), but he is stubborn and stupid and sacrifices everything for it, even a life with his sweet young daughter. The decent moments were really a clear minority here. In these family scenes, Loibl shone again as well. I also really liked the tense permanent look he gave Thomass' character during their first meeting at her workplace. Maybe the best moment of the entire movie. I think the title is also not too shabby overall, mostly because of the irony attached to it. But yeah, this is pretty much all the good I can mention here. Other than that, the film is constantly between terrible and poor territory quality-wise and we have another example of a crime thriller from Germany (my country) gone completely wrong here, mostly for reasons to fit in with the overall political climate. The put artistic talent second to that and the outcome is accordingly as you can see from my review and rating too. The rating here on imdb is way too high. I guess that if you like Thomass more than I do, then perhaps you will not find it as unwatchable at times, but for some writing inclusions, there is absolutely no excuse. I give it a thumbs-down overall, certainly closer to a failure than to a good movie.
As we move on to the cast, the woman you see on the photo here is Rosalie Thomass. There is not much positive thing I can say about her either. I guess she really profits a lot from the debate that women/actresses do not have to be super thin and super attractive to have a great career. Something I certainly agree with, but with Thomas it is some kind of positive discrimination. I have seen her in a few films and she almost always plays the exact same character. Versatility and range seem almost inexistent. So over appreciating her normal body shape, the one man women have, people tend to forget that this alone is not enough to be a convincing actress. Shameful stuff. The good news, however, or slightly good news, is that at least she is not as unwatchably bad as for example in her recent Doris Dörrie film set in Asia. That does not mean though that she is good in here. Definitely not. It's just because she was so bad in the other one. The one who literally keeps this film from being an even bigger failure is Thomas Loibl (cool first name!). His range may also not be as good as his recognition value, but I think he is a somewhat talented actor overall and I like seeing him. With a weaker actor playing his key character, I probably would have taken away another two stars. Wish I could say only remotely the same about Friedrich Mücke, but his presence here is a true embarrassment. His character only exists to make Thomass and hers look better. I honestly have no idea why any actor with only the slightest bit of ambition would accept such a part. Then again, I have seen Mücke in other stuff and he was never particularly good, so I am not surprised at all he is the perhaps biggest supporting player here. And please don#t tell me he deserves a thumbs-up for being brave enough to show full frontal nudity.
One key issue with this film is the political correctness again that is all over the German media. I think it is pretty cringeworthy how they tried so hard here to come up with a strong female character. It's all make-believe. I already mentioned the nudity scene. This was basically to show us how he is vulnerable and how she is the (at least) equally strong 50% in the relationship. She is also a tough girl because she was in jail already. And she is physically strong, can carry her disabled man around. Also she has the heart in the right place as she loves him nonetheless and stayed with him despite his stupid accident for which nobody but himself is to blame. At the same time, she is a tough career woman working hard to make a living and get enough money to support her man's surgeries because he cannot anymore. And she is appreciated by her boss at work (the actor was okay, the role you'd expect Peter Kurth to see in) and of course the man is ready to basically appoint her as his successor one day because she is doing such a great job and because she is so reliable. The friendly joking around between these two linked to coffee as well I think was pretty embarrassing to watch by the way. There Hambalek's lack of sufficient experience fully showed. About as cringeworthy as the scene with the aforementioned big argument between Thomass' and Mücke's characters in this film where the former makes a direct reference to the accident that caused her man's disability. This, however, was at least as much because of Thomass' lack of talent to portray lead characters as it was to poor writing. One example that was 100% poor writing though was the violent meeting between Mücke's character and Eichhorn's character (the boss). Absolutely ridiculous, especially what the latter had to work with there how he fully defends his employee secretly taking the money and the words he had to say. Felt bad for the actor there with this "never happened" and "loyalty to one's woman" references. Unwatchable stuff. What was just as bad as that was Mücke's character, despite how determined he was, then going home and acting as if he decided that he will not talk to her boss instead of going to the police then. Unreal stuff.
One of the rare good moments was the violent encounter between Eichhorn's character and Loibl's character. The actors did a decent job there I would say, also some okay writing there with the words the latter uses to get closer to the former. Not one of many decent moments at all though. In general, the idea was pretty ridiculous how the bad guy was strolling around visiting those close to Thomass' character and threatening them. This includes most of all our protagonist's best friend who of course has the right ethnicity for being another strong female and loyal companion to our heroine and her foul mouth was supposed to be pretty cool or something. The shared tattoos that result into an image were already highly cringeworthy. This was basically nothing but showing off to the audience. But when things really got worse was when the bad guy visited said friend and the latter had to make this phone call and in the most pathetic and embarrassing manner managed to warn her friend. When a blind man could really see that she warned her in a (not so) subtle manner instead of making her feel safe. And then Loibl's character stitting right next to her even said something as if she did fine in following his orders exactly. Ridiculous stuff really. These scenes with him and said friend and the boss also felt fairly for the sake of it all I must say. They could have done a lot more with those, also with how we do not find out at all what happened to the characters afterwards. This is where the film felt a bit rushed, but they had to fit it into 88 minutes which is probably the explanation for that.
In any case, this is a really manipulative movie as well. All the poorly written ways in which they want to make sure that even the last audience member wants her to keep the money (commit a crime) were simply disgusting. Be it the bad guy killing the other woman early on, so we see Thomass' character as someone likable (in general a brave decision to depict violence and murder, but here it all feels for the sake of it), be it the ways in which the protagonist is clumsily depicted as a strong female (I mentioned those early on already, but you can also include her killshot in the end of her gritty gun action in general), be it the losses she has to suffer (especially her man at the very end, so she, the woman, is the only survivor) and there are many other examples. It's all a true embarrassment. I just mentioned the woman who gets killed early on. Well, there is another, namely the bad guy's partner and in order to really not offend any metoo follower, they made sure that this woman wants him to be a good guy and leave the money (i.e. Support Thomass' idea of keeping it), but he is stubborn and stupid and sacrifices everything for it, even a life with his sweet young daughter. The decent moments were really a clear minority here. In these family scenes, Loibl shone again as well. I also really liked the tense permanent look he gave Thomass' character during their first meeting at her workplace. Maybe the best moment of the entire movie. I think the title is also not too shabby overall, mostly because of the irony attached to it. But yeah, this is pretty much all the good I can mention here. Other than that, the film is constantly between terrible and poor territory quality-wise and we have another example of a crime thriller from Germany (my country) gone completely wrong here, mostly for reasons to fit in with the overall political climate. The put artistic talent second to that and the outcome is accordingly as you can see from my review and rating too. The rating here on imdb is way too high. I guess that if you like Thomass more than I do, then perhaps you will not find it as unwatchable at times, but for some writing inclusions, there is absolutely no excuse. I give it a thumbs-down overall, certainly closer to a failure than to a good movie.
