Scandinavian Noir Comedy

Jackpot certainly starts off with a bang, as the movie's protagonist is discovered surrounded by dead bodies in a sleazy strip club. He is soon hauled off to the local cop shop by detective Solør and by a process of interrogation the full story of how he got there is pieced together.

The twist in the tale is that Svendsen is an unreliable narrator which helps to make the narrative less predictable than it could have been, as the characters and set-up are pretty much stereotypical: the noirish cynical cop, motivation to get a hold of a massive sum of money, and gang of random psychopaths. The humour is as black as pitch and the violence extremely graphic which makes this a film which isn't for the faint-hearted.

The cast did pretty well with the material they had but the characterisation was pretty thin, with the crooks being pretty much indistinguishable from each other. The main problem this film had for me is that it was rather reminiscent of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting and Shallow Grave but isn't as good as either of them. There isn't anyone as memorable as Renton or Spud and the dialogue isn't as well crafted as that in Boyle's movies either.

Jackpot was a well made movie which maintained my interest but I doubt that I would make a great effort to see it again. There were a few funny moments as well as some scenes which were impressively tense but the screenplay could have done with a bit more work really. It is worth a look if you enjoy black humour or contemporary crime stories but wasn't truly memorable.

6/10