'Lottery Ticket' (PG-13) (out of four)

If you look beyond the stereotyping, and there is plenty of it: the projects, a loud-suit wearing preacher, thugs, "crack is whack" and lots of talk about the struggles of the 'hood, "Lottery Ticket" isn't all that bad.

An all-grown up Bow Wow (the rapper previously known as Lil' Bow Wow) plays nice guy Kevin, a Foot Locker salesman with aspirations of earning enough to put a pair of $5,000 special edition Nikes on his feet, and one day owning his own custom-made gym shoe store.

He lives in the projects with his grandmother, who believes that playing numbers that Jesus recited to her in a dream will help her win the lottery. And he has to keep his Foot Locker job not to escape the projects, but to help his grandmother pay the rent. Yep, Kevin is a nice guy.

Oh, did we also tell you that he helps a washed up heavyweight boxer who lives in a basement in the projects by buying the guy Cherry Coke and beef jerky? (Ice Cube as the reclusive Mr. Washington, and executive producer of the film, ends up being the glue that holds the film together).

Kevin's best friend Benny (a lively Brandon T. Jackson) is the minus to Kevin's plus, not understanding why there would be any interest in helping out the recluse. "That dude has slave dust on him," Benny says in the film.

The Anywhere, USA, project (Atlanta in real life) has lottery fever. The Mondo Lottery Jackpot is up to $370 million, and it's just the ticket everyone needs to hot-foot it out of the projects. Of course, in this slice of life, it appears that the lottery is only going to be won from someone in the projects. What about the other fools that are playing it all across Metro Anywhere, USA?

We don't have to tell you what happens next. Well, OK, maybe we do because it's not really a spoiler since you'll guess in the first five minutes anyway. Kevin finds numbers on a fortune cookie, and after he's fired from Foot Locker decides, what the heck, he'll play them. He actually goes against his own golden rule for this as he believes the lottery is a sinister plot to keep "poor people poor."

Yet, lo and behold, he wins.

Now everyone wants a piece of him. The town's Baptist minister (Mike Epps) conjures up a special presentation at Sunday's service designed to get the new "Moses of the projects" to open his pockets. The town's "premature crack baby felon" wants the money and is going to go to any lengths to get it.

The set up for Kevin not becoming an instant millionaire is that it's the Fourth of July holiday so all of federal offices are closed (darn government holidays), leaving Kevin to hang on to the ticket for three days. It does make you wonder: If everyone knows you have a $370 million lottery ticket why would you carry it around in your wallet in the projects? But a movie's gotta do what a movie's gotta do. And here lies the tension -- Kevin is chased, beaten, threatened, knocked down, coerced into the resident bad girl's bed, and eventually dragged into Mr. Washington's basement.

Sure "Lottery Ticket's" premise is about as likely to happen as, well, winning the lottery, yet there's nothing wrong with gambling on a few hours of fun. Meanwhile, "Lottery Ticket" is a pleasant diversion from today's real money woes.