You can tell “Lottery Ticket” means well, and it’s careful to spell out a message to its audience: The lottery takes advantage of poor people and is generally a very foolish way to try to make money.
With that noted, the plot proceeds to catapult itself into motion from the one-in-a-million chance of the hero winning a giant jackpot. Mixed message? Hmm, could be.
The winner is Kevin (played by Bow Wow), a recent high school grad from the Atlanta projects. The movie’s about how Kevin’s sudden windfall affects his community, especially during the long July 4th weekend before he can actually verify his winnings.
The movie focuses less on would-be spongers (although there’s a group of friends who’d like to become Kevin’s entourage), and more on how Kevin must avoid an ex-con who would dearly like to appropriate the ticket for himself.
And, in the fashion of any movie like this, Kevin must learn that the spectacular come-ons of a local bombshell (Teairra Mari) don’t mean as much as the affection of his longtime platonic friend (Naturi Naughton, who played Lil’ Kim in the “Notorious” biopic).
The life lessons about loyalty and staying true to your neighborhood are typical for movies produced by Ice Cube, and “Lottery Ticket,” for all its slapstick comedy, is no exception.
Ice Cube also contributes a supporting performance as a washed-up boxer, a pretty good character turn for the now-graying rapper.
Director Erik White (who wrote the script with Abdul Williams) is smart enough to have something wacky happen every few minutes: bringing in the reliably silly Mike Epps (“The Hangover”) to play a preacher whose style seems modeled after Little Richard, or Charlie Murphy (Eddie’s brother) or Terry Crews (“The Expendables”) to fill in bits of humor.
I liked Bow Wow in the lead role; formerly Lil’ Bow Wow, he seems to be navigating the transition from child star to adult with more naturalness than most. Brandon T. Jackson provides some funny moments as his best friend, and Loretta Devine dithers as his grandmother.
It would be nice to report that “Lottery Ticket” actually stitched together its different ambitions; it wants to be a crazy comedy but also say a few things about life in black communities today. It doesn’t really get there, but the effort — and the agreeable cast trying to put it all over — is worth applauding.
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