Jackpot Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Jackpot Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 25, 2014

Who amongst us hasn’t dreamed of winning the lottery? Who wouldn’t thrill at the thought of suddenly having untold riches and the freedom to do whatever he or she wanted to? And yet lottery winners have often had a very hard time adjusting to their new lot(tery) in life, as a cursory review of tabloid headlines and even reality television outings easily proves. Jackpot details the precarious adventures of one incredibly hapless soul who has the misfortune of being fortunate enough to win an unlikely high stakes soccer pool where he’s suddenly awash in piles and piles of cash—except that he’s gone in on the pool with a number of nefarious types who don’t cotton much to sharing the prize. This ultra- black comedy has a decent mixture of (pun entirely intended) The Usual Suspects like Quentin Tarantino and The Coen Brothers, and if that gives it a certain “been there, seen that” quality, it at least moves at a breakneck speed that may divert attention from the more hackneyed (and/or hack-sawed) elements on display.

Oscar Svendson (Kyrre Hellum) may not exactly be in the same intellectual league as Keyser Söze, but he similarly unspools a rather unlikely tale of subterfuge, betrayal and lots and lots of vivisection to a beleaguered policeman named Solør (Henrik Mestad). Against an unlikely holiday setting, Oscar begins to tell his tale of woe, which starts (more or less) with a celebration after a completely capricious decision on his part to buy into a soccer betting pool pays off with huge dividends. Unfortunately the celebration is short-lived, as are many of the participants in the pool, once a cascading series of backstabbings (as well as axings and other sharp object defilings) begins. Jackpot never really offers anything new, but it's so relentlessly manic that it may ultimately win you over, either through attrition or its own peculiar and pitch black charms.

Jackpot Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Jackpot is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Music Box Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. This appears to have been shot in various media, including both film and video, but the result is surprisingly homogenous, with a good, if somewhat bland, palette and very good to excellent sharpness and clarity. Things have been toyed here with regard to color grading or at least severely tinted lighting (as in the porn shop where much of the film takes place), leading to a slight but noticeable loss of detail. There are no problematic artifacts to report.

Jackpot Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Jackpot's menu describes the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix as being in both Norwegian and Swedish, but as my knowledge of Scandinavian languages is pretty slim (does smörgåsbord count?), I can't state who is speaking what. This is a somewhat noisy film, but the mix here is very well prioritized, with dialogue very cleanly presented. Fidelity is excellent, dynamic range is extremely wide, and there are no problems of any kind to report.

Jackpot Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Behind the Scenes of Jackpot (720p; 4:43)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:55)

Jackpot Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Jackpot isn't quite the tour de force that films like The Usual Suspects or Fargo (a film this one resembles not just in its deadpan tone, but its use of a wood chipper) are, but it's relentless, and that very energy may finally help to win over curmudgeons who will think they've seen it all before. Technical merits here are very strong, and Jackpot comes Recommended.