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| Pay It Forward |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 123 |
| Public Rating: 7.06 (34 votes) |
Director: Mime Leder |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 2000 |
| Writer(s): Leslie Dixon |
| Reviewed by: Matthew Coats |
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Before I start talking about this movie, I have something interesting to say about it, a sort of Haley Joel Osment theory if you will. At the same time I was watching this movie, The USS Cole was sunk, Haley Joel Osment played Cole in "The Sixth Sense." Also, at that same moment, there was a forest fire in my state. Osment also playe Forrest Jr. in "Forrest Gump." Pretty weird, huh? "Pay it Forward" has an interesting flow of events.
It begins with Jay Mohr (He was in "Go' one of a few connections to that movie here) as a reporter whose car is destroyed at the scene of a crime. Out of the shadows come a man who give him his brand new Jaguar, no strings attached, he just has to "Pay it Forward." The movie flashes back to four months earlier and works it's way up to that present moment without confusing the audience with another title saying "4 months later." Jumping back in forth through time like that can get annoying.
What is 'Pay it Forward" Well... Kevin Spacey is a teacher at a bad-ass junior high school in Las Vegas (Another connection to "Go") that plays music by No Doubt (The song "New" featured on the soundtrack for "Go") when kids pass through metal detectors. Kevin Spacey addresses his students and sounds like he plays that "Word challenge" game in Reader's Digest far too much. He throws around large words and confuses everybody. He later says "Words are all I have." Oh, and by the way, Kevin Spacey has scars all over his face, but nobody really notices until halfway through the movie, quite unrealistic tolerance for today's society I believe, but I digress. Kevin Spacey (Mr. Simonet) gives his students an assignment: "Make a plan to change the world and put it into action." Haley Joel Osment (Trevor) comes up with "Pay It Forward" in which he helps three people in large ways, as long as they, in turn help three other people in turn. The first person he decides to help is a heroine-addicted homeless man named Jerry (Jim Cavizel from "Frequency") by giving him a meal, clothes, and helping him get a job. Of course he checks back on Jerry to find him living in a motel with people that look like former members for The Grateful Dead, it still puzzles me because it sounds like one of them yells "We need more product." I guess you have to be a junkie to get that.
Now, Helen Hunt, who looked really hot in "As Good as it Gets" (Well, I think so) plays Haley Joel Osment's alcoholic mother in this movie. She looks like a mess. Her face scares me during the first half of the movie. Haley Joel Osment decides to hook up his mother with his teacher, Mr. Simonet. Now, the movie has two parallel story lines. One involves Haley Joel Osment in Vegas, while the other is Jay Mohr in LA trying his hardest to trace Pay it Forward" back to the person it began with. He comes across a poorly dressed black man (another refrence to "Go"? Remember how Taye Diggs dressed in that movie) who leads him to Vegas.
I don't want to spoil any thing about this movie. The last hour is really powerful. The performances are really full of emotion (Oscar nominations all around). The directing is rather well, although I would imagine it is hard for an action director (Mime Leder: "Deep Impact," "The Peacemaker") to suddenly change to serious drama. Don't try to argue that "Deep Impact" had serious drama, because it didn't!
Out of 10 stars, I give this movie 10. It did what every movie should do. It entertained, while simultaneously making one think about life. At the ending when I heard all the women in the theater crying, I smiled because that's what movies should do. They should pull you into the plot so much that you really feel for the characters as if they're one of your own family, and this movie did that in a suburb fashion.
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