Greetings, monkey boys! ROBOGEEK here with not one, but two advance reviews of the much-anticipated PAY IT FORWARD.
PLEASE NOTE that the version of the film both these reviewers saw was not the final, finished work that will be released in theaters, but still very much a work-in-progress -- so please keep that in mind when considering the mixed feelings expressed in these reviews.
Our first review comes from CAVEMAN CRUMBONE...
Hello all, Crumbone here. Although I noticed that people have been covering many of the previews I've seen here in LA (Meet The Parents is fantastic, btw) no one seems to have written in with a review of the new Haley Joel Osment/ Kevin Spacey/ Helen Hunt vehicle, PAY IT FOWARD. So, here's the skinny...
The basic premise of the movie is that Haley Joel Osment is a young, 11-year-old boy who lives alone with his mother (Helen Hunt), an alcoholic working nearly three jobs to support them. On Haley's first day of school, he meets and is taken by his social studies teacher (Kevin Spacey), whose face was horribly scarred in a fire of some sort. (Don't worry, the makeup is fairly well done; he has just enough burns for us to realize that he's kind of hideous, but not so many that we cringe.)
Anyway, Spacey challenges his class to do one good thing to change the world for an extra credit project. So Haley devises a system called "Pay It Forward", by which he does one good thing for three people, and they in turn do one good thing for three more people, etc., thereby spreading goodwill. Eventually, Haley figures out a scheme to get his mother and his teacher together, and they gradually begin to fall in love.
The movie flips back and forth through time, following both Haley and the events of his world, and a reporter (Jay Mohr) who is eventually a recipient of "Pay It Forward" and becomes determined to track the story to its origins. (Jay Mohr is his usual self, very funny in my opinion.)
The movie is clearly unfinished. The presenter emphasized that it was far from finished, and the background music was all temp-tracked from Thomas Newman's "American Beauty" score (which was very distracting in the scenes with Spacey!). The movie overall is very good, though. It proved for me that Haley is not just a one-shot deal. He delivers a great performance in this role. Spacey is also very good - not Oscar good, but very good none the less.
The movie has a shocker ending that somewhat betrays the rest of the movie and the character arcs, but hopefully they will find a way to fix this. Oh, did I mention the person who will be fixing it? MIMI LEDER, that's who!!! I guess not everyone likes her, but I do.
That's it. This movie is well worth seeing, and I'm going back to my cave.
- Caveman Crumbone
Our second review, which includes even more information, comes from KRISPY KREME...
This is my first review for my favorite site on the net, and I hope you can use it. Here goes:
I saw an unfinished cut of the new Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment starrer "Pay It Forward". It's about a teacher with a disfigured face (Kevin Spacey), who assigns his class the task of coming up with ideas of how they could change the world for the better.
One of his young students, played by the wonderful Osment (the kid in "Sixth Sense") comes up with the idea of "paying it forward", where he will help three people and they in turn have to help three other people and so on, in the hope that this will make the world just a tiny bit better.
The kid starts with a homeless man, played by James Cavieziel - who is very good looking and a great actor - and then moves on to his alcoholic, white trash mom, played by Helen Hunt. He tries to set her up with the teacher and a love story actually develops between those two.
There is a twist at the end that worked for me, but that some people might find a little too sickeningly sentimental. There is a subplot concerning a journalist from LA, played by Jay Mohr, who covers the impact "Pay It Forward" starts to have on people all over America. Then there is another subplot between Helen Hunt’s character and her ex-husband, played by a super-wooden Jon Bon Jovi (who might have been good in other films, but here stands out - and not in a good way).
My friends and I really enjoyed the film, even though there was no finished score, it hasn’t been mixed and there were no effects. It is a sweet story with a "message" - not for the jaded at heart, but I think it will work wonders on a lot of people. We actually walked out and discussed how we could make the world "just a tiny bit better", so you see that it definitely hit home.
There are a few things wrong with this film, though, and I’m not sure if they will be fixed for the final cut or not. But they should.
Helen Hunt looks - and acts! - like she saw "Erin Brokovich" way too many times, called her agent and demanded her very own "white trash woman who works three jobs to keep her kids fed" role. Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed "Erin Brokovich", but it is a little disturbing to see Helen Hunt trying to play a very similar character wearing the same cute, trashy outfits Julia Roberts wore.
On top of that, Helen and Kevin Spacey have no real chemistry, and sometimes scenes between them felt like they should have a flashing subtitle saying "Oscar clip!", "another Oscar moment!" It felt like they were "out-acting" each other, instead of just being who they were supposed to be. But I don’t think Kevin Spacey could be bad even if he tried to and here he delivers a solid, touching performance, as always.
But it's the subplot with the journalist (Mohr) covering the story that bogs everything down and I’m not really sure why it is in there. He just drives around interviewing people about what happened to them. As the movie feels too long anyway, this could definitely be cut way down.
But if you need one reason to see this film and you enjoy good acting, go to see it for Osment. I think he is something like 12 years old now, but he is already one of the most amazing actors out there and he definitely blew me away in this one! I would not be surprised if he gets nominated again and he would deserve it. He is so real and so unpretentious that I’m sure a lot of actors will look at his performance in awe. I know we all did.
- Krispy Kreme
