Pay it Forward

8.90

Rating: 8.9 | Votes: 89

This Movie @ Amazon.com

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Submitted by: Nice from Pampanga, Philippines
The movie made me realize that no matter how miserable a person's life might become, there's still this hope of CHANGE..
It also made me think of how great it is to create your NICHE that could make a BIG difference to other's person's lives.

Submitted by: alicia.harshman
Ok so i just want to say something about the first couple comments. i can't believe you would actually go to say this movie was sappy and predictable besides if it was so sappy and predictably why did you keep watching it. I found this movie to be very inspiring. I hope it makes everyone think before they do something i hope it influences everyone to become a world changer!

Submitted by Unknown
This is the most inspirational movie I have ever seen. The cast
includes: Kevin Spacey, Halley Joel Osmett, Helen Hunt, and many
more. The theme is that you can change someone else's life by
doing something good for them without them wanting it done, and then
making them do the same thing for someone else. I give it four stars!
(out of four)

Submitted by Unknown
I thought this movie was fantastic. It shows you that one person CAN make a difference.

Submitted by Unknown
One of the most inspiring films I have ever seen. But get the tissues ready!

Great movie
This was a tearjerker, but well worth it! The price was unbelieveable. It is a warm and good family show with a great message.

Great Movie
This movie is all-inspiring, and makes you think...wish that the world could be more like it.

ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES YOU WILL EVER SEE
THIS WAS AN EXCELLENT MOVIE. THE STORY WAS GREAT, AND THE PERFORMANCES BY KEVIN SPACEY, HELEN HUNT, AND HALEY JOEL OSMENT WERE OUTSTANDING. DEFINITELY WORTH WATCHING AGAIN AND AGAIN.

wrong format for Europe
I'm sorry, I can hardly use the copys I got because it is NTC. I thought the Amazon-staff would know that Iceland is in Europe and we use Pal-format on our DVDs.

Get ready to cry...
This movie is pure sentimental saccharine schmaltz, in the line of Ron Howard yet not as effective or as expertly handled, but I still gobble it up like it were peach cobbler and sob like a baby who lost his binky. I mean, this movie is simultaneously forced and honest, and that is thanks to the splendid acting and the contrived script.

The base prose for `Pay it Forward' is quite simple. A young kid with bid ideas finds that his new teacher has motivated him to put into play a plan that could alter the face of the world. Asked to come up with an idea that could change the world, young Trevor decides that if he were to do something to help three people and those three people helped three other people (and so on and so forth) then the world could be a better place for everyone. Trevor immediately sets his sights on his mother, an alcoholic struggling to take care of her son, and a junkie in need of a fresh start.

Where the film goes wrong, for me, is in trying to make too much of this `idea'. The idea should have been a metaphor for what young Trevor was experiencing at home, in his life, struggling to find something better and pay himself forward so-to-speak. The film tries to go that way in parts (the natural development of his mother, played brilliantly by Helen Hunt, is one thing this film nails) but the way it handles the phenomenon that this idea became kind of relinquishes the effect it should have had to a mere punch line. It loses a lot of its weight and emotional power by spreading it too thin.

Yes, the ending is crafted for the sole purpose of bleeding your tear ducts, but I wouldn't have changed it.

The best thing about this film is, by far, the performances. Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment have all been better, but that doesn't mean that they don't work this material over very well here. Osment has to kind of carry the film, for he needs to sell us on his childlike innocence as well as his matured sense of understanding, and he does so beautifully. Kevin Spacey is an actor who I really like, a lot. He manages to take a gimmicky character (burn victim/inspirational teacher) and make him human (that whole "my father" scene just broke my heart). But, just like in `As Good As It Gets', best in show awards can be showered upon only one person, and that is Helen Hunt. She is outstanding as Trevor's emotionally unstable mother. Her frailties are beautifully tempered by her overly assertive sense of strength. She tries so hard and yet falls so far, and it is seen all over the creases in her face.

The film is as schmaltzy as they come, and it doesn't try to hide that fact. It is designed to do one thing, make you cry, and it does that with ease. I would have loved this subject to have been dissected and tackled with a little more earnest grit (and honest realism), since the performances truly deserved it, but in the end I am more than satisfied with the way this film pans out.

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