Pay It Forward, could be called a lot of things. It could be called a heart warming film, or a stunning achievement, or a huge shocker. It could be called the first masterpiece script of the 21st century.
It could be called the most well acted movie in decades. It could be called the best movie out right now that you have never heard of. It is all of these things with one problem ... the ending.
I hate reviews that spoil the end of the movie. Even if a film has been out for months the ending should not be discussed in the media.
Even a film that makes $100 million will always have a few movie-going fans out there that haven't seen it yet, but want to. So I will refrain from telling you the ending. I will tell you that besides the ending, I loved this movie.
Coming off of his incredible breakthrough performance in The Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment delivers again. You can expect to see this kid in many more films and probably on stage many times accepting awards in the future. In a movie where Osment has to go face to face with Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt the kid manages to hold his own and even steal a scene or two.
Osment plays an 11-year-old child who is off to his first year of junior high school. His social studies teacher, played by Spacey, offers up an assignment that seems to big to be true. The students must come up with a plan to change the world and they have to try it out in order to see how it works.
Osment comes up with a plan that goes something like this: #1 You have to do a favor for someone, but it has to be something that really helps them. #2 It has to be something that they can't do for themselves. #3 You do it for them, they do it for three other people. Those are the rules when you pay it forward.
Osment decides that for one of the favors that he is going to do is to help his teacher, who is badly burned on his face and seems like a lonely man, and his mom (Hunt), who is a divorced recovering alcoholic, get together and go on a date. This leads to the meat of the plot.
Hunt, Spacey, and Osment have a chemistry between them that goes much deeper than I have seen in a long time. This movie will make you laugh out loud, cry openly and finally scream at the screen in the closing scenes. A few of the supporting actors are key players as well. James Caviezel (Frequency) plays a drugged out bum who is an unlikely player in the pay it forward chain. Jay Mohr (Go) is a reporter tracking the nation-wide phenomenon known as pay it forward.
The cast also gets a push in the middle of the flick from Jon Bon Jovi who plays Helen Hunt's alcoholic ex-husband who is back just in time to stir things up when they seem to be headed in the right direction.
After his second strong character part, the first being in U-571 Bon Jovi might just be on the way to a second career.
Pay It Forward, does not leave you hanging. It does not leave anything more to be desired. It is a good solid movie that had a weak promotional push from the production company. That is why it is the best movie out right now that most people haven't heard of.
It does, however, take a turn at the end that you can see coming, but you beg silently to yourself that it doesn't come. It does. And you will sit in your seat as the credits roll wondering why the world has to be like this.
Movie Grade: A-
(PG-13, 125 minutes)
