Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, even the Sixth Sense kid could not match the high-caliber of Jon Bon Jovi's performance. It was...spectacular! Even on the computer screen, that just looks hilarious; and of course, implausible. But seriously, even despite the presence of the pop metal star trying too hard to act, this was a really entertaining movie with a lot of funny scenes and a warm heart. Kevin Spacey is a social studies teacher with burn marks on his face that he's kinda sensitive about, who gives his class the assignment of thinking of a way to change the world, and put it into action. 11-year-old Trevor (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with Pay It Forward; you do three big favors for three people, and tell them they can pay you back by following suit and doing three favors for three other people. Ideally, a pyramid effect will begin, and soon everyone will be doing nice things for everybody. Throughout the film, we see the effects of Pay It Forward across the country, without the kid realizing that his own three, initial favors worked out.
One of those favors was trying to help Kevin Spacey get a girl; Trevor's mom, Helen Hunt, a semi-recovering alcoholic. Stuff goes on in their relationship, a lot of it REALLY melodramatic, but the exquisite performances of Spacey and Hunt are able to pull it off superbly. In fact, the only performance that was not at the very least great was Bon Jovi, who should really stick to singing.
Speaking of music, Thomas Newman, the guy who masterfully scored American Beauty, also with Kevin Spacey, did the score for this film as well. The only problem is that he used the same exact music from the oscar-winner. There were actually some scenes where I couldn't hear the difference! If you've seen "American Beauty" and remember the music, this might get a little annoying. I wasn't able to stop thinking about the fact that they just recycled the same music. Is this Newman guy dead? Was this supposed to be an homage to his best work? Or was he seriously trying to pass this off as original music? Maybe I was just the first to notice?
Overall, this film is really well made and worth checking out. Some people may feel it's naive and simplistic-and you easily can look at this movie in that way. Or, you can just enjoy it, and think about how nice it would be if the world was really like this. People are inherently good, and that's really all this movie is trying to say. It's not a revolutionary idea, it's not a stupid idea, it's just...nice.
Everything in social studies teacher Eugene Simonet s (Kevin Spacey) life is in order--every shirt, every pencil, every person in its proper place. To...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.