Overall Rating
  Awesome: 23.84%
Worth A Look: 26.49%
Just Average: 13.25%
Pretty Crappy: 26.49%
Sucks: 9.93%
9 reviews, 97 user ratings
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Pay It Forward |
by Clint Morris
"More wholesome than Christmas Dinner at granny's"

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Inspirational, touching, so flippin' enjoyable. I can't
tell you how much I enjoyed sitting there and watching
this 2 hour gem.
Young Haley Joel Osment who stunned audiences with his
performance in "The Sixth Sense", follows that up with
another ripper performance, a role which could, very likely
earn him another Oscar nomination.I would also say the same for Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, both fantastic. This highly original movie centres around a young 11 year old named Trevor (Osment) who, along with his classmates, are given, what they believe, is the toughest school assignment ever. They are assigned to change the world in some way, do something meaningul. "Thats weird", "Thats hard" the kids cry. "Yes, but it's also possible" replies the teacher, played with such brilliance by Kevin Spacey. What Trevor comes up with is a movement called "pay it forward" where he helps 3 people in a big way, and then those 3 people must help another 3 people, and so on. It all begins with Trevor helping out a local homeless man (Caviezel), and then eventually helping his single, hard working mother (Helen Hunt) find romance again, in the form of his own school teacher (Spacey), who has suffered a lot in his life. Hunt is great as the white-trash mother. They have really done her 'down' to make her look very plain. Same for Spacey, he is usually playing a real way out character such as the ones he won oscars for in films like "The Usual Suspects" and "American Beauty", but his performance here is sensational. He plays the straight guy, a tortued soul of sorts, and I praise him like never before. Finally, Osment is a shining star. He has so much emotion and power in his small frame. He, to a sense, carries this film, in the same way, Macauley Culkin carried kids comedies in the early 90's. What is so great about "Pay" is that it doesn't belong in any particular catergory. It's funny, it's romantic, it's very dramatic and tense at times, and boy, is it sad.Based on a book, this film is not without flaw, but it's
something the whole family can watch, enjoy and ask
themselves some questions about ourselves and the world
we live in.
link directly to this review at https://www.hollywoodbitchslap.com/review.php?movie=3898&reviewer=238 originally posted: 12/13/00 01:50:03
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USA 20-Oct-2000 (PG-13)
UK N/A
Australia 22-Feb-2001 (PG)
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