Pay It Forward

Finally, a movie that will make Washington happy. Finally a movie with an all-star cast, that really is a good cast. Pay It Forward, directed by Mimi Leder and starring Kevin Spacey has everything going for it, right? Well, if you like over sappy, manipulative goop, then this is the movie for you. Kevin Spacey is Eugene Simonet, a middle school civics teacher who decides to give his class a near impossible extra credit assignment to find something to better the world, and then set it in action. One of his students, Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) thinks up "Pay It Forward". The plan would allow someone to help someone else, and in return, that person would help three others and those three would help three more, and so on until the world is a happy world of flowers and joy. Helen Hunt is Trevor's mom, a boozer trying to get over his father, Ricki (Jon Bon Jovi). She falls for Eugene, who has his own nightmares of his past he's battling. Everyone has problems in this world and Trevor is going to solve them all.

SPOILER AHEAD

Well, that is until he gets killed. Does that make any sense? Basically this film was trying to spread a good message to the world, to a bigger scale of people than just popcorn munching moviegoers. At least that's what I wanted to get out of it. It was inspirational and beautiful. Anyone can help everyone and the world will be a better place. However those glorious moviemakers are always looking for a quick buck (and maybe I shouldn't blame moviemakers because this movie was based on a book with the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde). When that boy died in the film they made him a martyr. But his whole plan blew up in his face (or stabbed him in the stomach). All the angel music and candle lighting couldn't bring the movie back from crap and I don't under any circumstances recommend you bringing it home from the video store. (And I hope Kevin Spacey regrets this movie every day of his life, it was SO beneath him!) Home