Sony Pictures
2 / 5
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SEVEN POUNDS Sony Pictures
2 / 5 |
I can never, ever spot surprise endings in movies. Never. Not even when they smack me in the face. Even then it takes my brain a moment to catch up. When THE SIXTH SENSE (1999) reached its climatic closing scene, I watched with an astonishment that will only be shared by those witnessing the second coming, as it slowly dawned on Bruce Willis that he was dead. But even as I sat and watched Bruce chatting to his on screen wife, even as his wedding ring fell out of her hand and rolled across the floor, even when he went back and spoke to that freaky little kid, my brain struggled to comprehend what I was witnessing and I wondered, "What's going on? What's she doing with his ring? Can he really be dead?!?" I was half way home from the cinema before it fully hit me. And I turned right around and went back to watch the movie again. So I think it's fair to say that I'm not that quick on the uptake. And because of that I love surprise endings.
It's also fair to say that I'm a huge fan of Will Smith. I love pretty much everything that he's been in, from way back in the day when he was on television in THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR (1990) to his more recent block buster appearances in I AM LEGEND (2007) and HANCOCK (2008). Anyone that describes himself as "looking like a Volkswagen bug with the doors open" is OK in my book. Ya wouldn't catch Tom Cruise making such a self-deprecating remark. Not by a long chalk.
I'm also a fan of director Gabriele Muccino who has teamed up with Smith once before in the fantastic film PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS (2005). Smith was Oscar nominated for that.
In SEVEN POUNDS, he plays Ben Thomas, an IRS agent, with a fateful secret who embarks on a journey of redemption thereby forever changing the lives of seven strangers.
One of those seven is Emily (Rosario Dawson), a young woman with an enlarged heart who will need a transplant soon if she's to survive. Given how gorgeous Dawson is, I'm inclined to like any movie she's in.
After all, you can always stick your fingers in your ears and just look at the screen.
SEVEN POUNDS opens with Ben Thomas (Smith) calling the police to report a suicide. "Who's the victim?" asks the operator. "I am", he replies. So from the get go you can tell that this movie, much like THE SIXTH SENSE, will depend primarily on its finale for an impact.
So to sum up we have a movie made by a director I like, with a lead actor I like, not to mention one of the most beautiful women in the world, a film that the ad campaign admits holds a secret and I'm an absolute sucker for surprise endings. It's gotta be a winner, right? Wrong.
Smith may have been Oscar nominated for PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS but he most definitely wasn't for this. It's a mawkish, overly sentimental bucket of nonsense with lashings of Jellyfish imagery. Sure there was a surprise ending, but it didn't quite do it for me. I had long since stopped caring. I should have sat through the movie with fingers in my ears just looking at Rosario Dawson.
Jason O'Mahony
www.sevenpounds.com
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