Review of Pay It Forward

Introduction

Pay it Forward was touted to be an Oscar winner well before last year, but on its release was said to be a massive disappointment. It seemed unbeatable on paper: you had a dream team cast - Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, and prodigious child actor Haley Joel Osment - and coupled with a female director and a script based on a sentimental story, the Academy Award should be yours! But somewhere along the line it must have lost its magic…

Video

The picture is practically flawless, as expected for a recent, high profile release.

Audio

The 5.1 DD track is also excellent, although this is perhaps not the best film to show your system off with. The dialogue can be heard clearly throughout.

Features

The main feature is Mimi Leder’s commentary. This is both informative and entertaining – and it makes a refreshing change listening to a female director for once. The making-of is, unfortunately, an HBO promotion. It was obviously made to sell the film, as you can tell by the many, many film clips included.

Conclusion

I was expecting so much more from Pay It Forward, so I’ll tell you where it went wrong: Kevin Spacey, in the making-of, got it right when he said they must avoid preachy sentimentality in a film like this. Mainly, the film is let down by its poor secondary reporter storyline arc: the story could have been told in a much better way than Jay Mohr’s investigations. And, apart from the novel eponymous idea and the Hollywood finesse, Pay It Forward finds it hard to break out of the Channel 5 relationships TV movie mould. At times it is brilliant; but at times it is awful. The most disappointing aspect is the ending, which is a manipulative attempt to shock the audience by adding this faux-twist. It IS worth watching, if only for the excellent acting performances, but there is so much wasted potential.