C

Though it’s about a guy who takes home a three hundred million dollar jackpot, there are no big winners in “Lottery Ticket,” a movie that aims for a “Friday” and “Barbershop” vibe but mostly mistakes frenzy for fun and too often opts for jarring bits of violence. The latest entry from Ice Cube’s shingle is at best a lukewarm affair.

Bow Wow, who’s grown up since his young rapper days, plays the hero, Kevin Carson, a nice but bland recent high school grad who lives with his grandma (Loretta Devine) in the Atlanta projects and works at Foot Locker, dreaming one day of having his own sneaker-design company. His best bud is fast-talking Benny (Brandon T. Jackson), and smart girl Stacie (Naturi Naughton) clearly has eyes for him. But in a community of colorful characters there’s a bad apple, brutal thug Lorenzo (Gbenga Akinnagbe), who rules the place not so much with his posse and his fist but with threats and icy stares.

Lorenzo, in fact, gets Kevin fired by demanding that the kid give him some free merchandise; and when he gets pinched besides, he vows to make Kevin pay. Our hero’s luck changes when on impulse he buys a lottery ticket from a wisecracking clerk (Faheem Najm) and actually wins the big prize. Unfortunately, as it’s a holiday weekend he won’t be able to cash the ticket in until the following Tuesday, and since his grandma spills the beans about his good luck, people of all sorts descend on him for handouts, including the flamboyant local preacher (Mike Epps). They’re mere annoyances, however, beside Lorenzo, who demands that Kevin turn over the ticket to him, and Sweet Tee (Keith David), the local boss, who induces Kevin to accept a “loan” of a hundred grand to treat himself and his friends with over the weekend, and saddles him with a bodyguard (Terry Crews) who’s there not only to protect him but to make sure his boss’s investment is safe. Kevin lets his new-found riches go to his head, and allows himself to be seduced by voluptuous Nikki (Teairra Mari), much to feet-on-the-ground Stacie’s disgust.

What follows is a chain of chases, beatings and confrontations that test Kevin’s principles and even his friendship with Benny. Ultimately he realizes what’s really important, but his eventual rescue from the grasping hands of Lorenzo comes not from Sweet Tee but an unexpected source—an old hermit named Washington, whom Kevin has befriended and who turns out to be a retired boxer with some punch left in his fists. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Ice Cube has chosen to take on this deus ex machina role himself.

What is surprising is that he’s one of the best things in the movie. Grey, bespectacled and hunched over, he looks well past his age, and he tosses off some amusing lines with aplomb. (His scenes at the celebratory close of the picture are less winning.) Another strong point in the picture is Najm, who’s been given some of the script’s funniest bits of dialogue and squeezes every laugh from them. (He almost makes up for the absence of Cedric the Entertainer, who’s rather missed.) Especially in the early going, Jackson’s Eddie Haskell routine earns chuckles, too.

But much of the picture is weighed down by the plot, which requires Kevin and his grandmother to do some pretty dumb things to keep things in motion and goes tone-deaf in much of the material dealing with the villainous Lorenzo and Sweet Tee; Akinnagbe, in particular, seems incapable of adding even a touch of humor to his character, who wouldn’t be put of place in “Boyz ’N the Hood.” The “romantic” scenes, despite director Erik White’s effort to give them some pizzazz, are pretty flat, too. And Bow Wow is simply too bland to make Kevin more than mildly appealing. With the exceptions already noted, the supporting cast just gets by; some, like Epps, blow what would have seemed a golden opportunity for big laughs.

For the most part “Lottery Ticket” is smoothly produced, though Patrick Cady’s camerawork gets messy in some of the chase scenes and the montage editor Harvey Rosenstock contrives for Kevin’s spending spree isn’t nearly as funny as intended. As usual in movies marketed for the inner-city audience, the score is largely a mix of hip-hop and rap, and very loud.

The end result is a “Ticket” that isn’t a complete loser, but at best delivers a modest payoff rather than a big jackpot.