The scenario seems pulled from a sitcom, but Lottery Ticket seeks to string together 90 minutes of comedy with its story about a kid from the projects who happens to win the lottery. Writer/director Erik White’s feature film debut doesn’t quite manage to fill up the whole script with laughs, and the film’s more sincere moments feel forced, but there’s enough good humor in here to allow actor/rappers Bow Wow and Ice Cube room to shine.
Kevin Carson (Bow Wow) works at a Foot Locker, can’t afford college, and his life is tormented by a local felon fresh out from jail, when he happens to buy a lottery ticket, using numbers from his friend Stacie’s (Naturi Naughton) fortune cookie. When he finds out he that he has won a few hundred million dollars, Kevin tries to keep it a secret, especially since it is Fourth of July Weekend and he won’t be able to turn in the ticket for three days. Unfortunately for Kevin, his grandma tells a neighbor, and soon the whole neighborhood knows about his lottery fortune. The chase begins. First Kevin and his buddy Benny (Brandon T. Jackson) are chased by neighbors who want favors. Then the neighborhood tough guys are chasing them trying to steal the ticket. Kevin also becomes unwittingly involved with a local gangster, Sweet Tee (Keith David), who loans the boys some cash to celebrate the lottery win in style. The jokes come largely in the form of bank-and-forth banter between Benny and Kevin, as Kevin tastes status and wealth only to have it ripped away.
Lottery Ticket is a mini-fable of fame and success with a message driven home about the price of wealth and the responsibility towards the people left behind on your rise to the top. In one scene, a finger is pointed directly at hip hop stars, when Stacie warns Kevin not to forget his neighborhood and use his newfound wealth to make the place where he grew up better. Ice Cube plays Mr. Washington, a former boxing trainer and a kind of project oracle who spews out solid life advice in between body bag punches.
About an hour in, the chase motif gets old, and while it all concludes in somewhat predictable final showdown between Kevin and his bully, good feelings abound. There are a few good jokes in there too, especially when the movie riffs on the typical behavior of families and neighbors. One of the funniest scenes involves the skeevy Reverend Taylor (Mike Epps), who tries to convince Kevin in his Sunday sermon to build him a new church and mansion (“like T.D. Jakes has”). Despite these bright moments, however, don’t expect Lottery Ticket to enter into the realm of cult immortality like Ice Cube’s Friday.
