Review in a Hurry: On the surface it's a goofy caper about a kid who hits the jackpot, but just underneath is a gritty movie about the mean streets. The flip-flop in tone can be awkward, but Lottery Ticket refuses to condescend to its audience. How refreshing.
The Bigger Picture: Kevin (rapper Bow Wow) is generally a good kid, with no real ambition or plan beyond his job at the Foot Locker. With the support of his tight-knit community, he resists the pull of the streets, but it's a daily battle.
His luck changes when, over the long Fourth of July weekend, Kevin wins a cool three-hundred-mil in the state lottery. A fortune like that in a neighborhood like this makes Kevin a wanted man, and he's dodging bullets (almost literally) until he can cash in his ticket after the holiday. Super thug Lorenzo (The Wire's Gbenga Akinnagbe), in particular, eyes Kevin's precious piece of paper like a dog does a pork chop.
Erik White, a director best known for music videos, brings both a dynamic aesthetic to the movie and a working-class realism to what would otherwise be a silly exercise. The actors—many of whom have comic backgrounds—are loose and natural. Their lines overlap in easy rhythm, and fistfights—and guns—make regular appearances.
More impressive is the filmmakers' gutsy subversion of what the movie is supposed to be. The too-good-to-be-true, sun-kissed housing project that appears in the opening scenes is soon sullied by Lorenzo and a serious gleam of danger, at which point you're not sure what you're in for.
This uneasy feeling carries all the way to the end. Various clichés about money not buying you happiness—or friends—all make their inevitable appearance, but it's White's intention to make this a smarter and tougher version of a screwball inner-city comedy that is anything but same-old, same-old. It doesn't work all the time, but it's definitely a worthy attempt.
The 180—a Second Opinion: The melodramatic proclamations about friendship, hopelessness and uncertain futures lean too heavily on the dark side, often leading the movie into dullsville.