Cashing in on writer Jo Nesbø’s newfound fame, Jackpot is the second of his books to be adapted for the silver screen, but compared to Headhunters, it’s been a lot less successful.
Waking up covered in blood, clenching a shotgun amid a dozen dead bodies in the seediest strip club in town, Oscar Svendson is taken in by the police and asked to explain the most suspicious of circumstances.
While it’s sufficiently shot and holds unsurprising tonal similarities to Headhunters, Jackpot is a much less striking effort. The narrative develops in a very formulaic fashion, which for a story that’s meant to be about surprise an intrigue, boasts so f ew twists and turns along the way. The film is well acted but it’s chronically let down by a lack of character development, with no spark at the off to get the whole thing rolling.