Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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30 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well worth watching, 12 Mar 2009
It's quite difficult to review `Seven Pounds' without giving any of the story away but it stars Will Smith in a more serious role than his usual blockbuster outings, this time as Ben, an IRS agent who is depressed and guilt-ridden about mistakes from his past. He sets out to make amends by helping seven strangers. When he meets Emily (Rosario Dawson), a beautiful woman with a heart condition, he falls in love with her, thereby complicating his plans.
I had read a lot of average reviews of this so wasn't expecting much but I actually really enjoyed this film. The acting from the whole cast was excellent, particularly from Rosario Dawson who played the woman suffering from a heart problem and also from Woody Harrelson who played the blind guy, which I think is actually one of the best performances I've ever seen him in. Will Smith is also very good and plays a lot more darker character than he usually does, which really showed off the extents of his acting talents. The story was a little hard to follow at first (I had no idea what was going on for the first hour of the movie, to be honest) but once it is explained later on it does all make sense and becomes a very rewarding watch.
Overall this isn't the best film I've seen this year but is definitely one I'd recommend watching. It is quite down-beat but is equally heart-warming near the end, so is well worth sticking with if you don't "get" it straight away.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A visual and emotional masterpiece, 14 Aug 2009
As someone who works in a rental store I am regularly subjected to people's opinions of films, and recently this one has been the top whinging point. The general complaints are that it's slow and hard to get through, and that the story line is confusing and cluttered.
I however disagree enormously! It's true that the first half of this film is structured in such a way that it does make it a little difficult to follow and figure out, however do you really think this is an accident? It's built like this to keep you hooked and guessing and when the point comes in the film where everything clicks it's exciting!
The story follows a troubled man, Ben Thomas (Played by Will Smith in possibly his greatest role yet) an IRS officer. From the beginning of this film you are left guessing what kind of a person he is, it starts with him abusing a bling man over the phone, but then being aparently disgusted by his behaviour. We then follow him as he does huge favours for aparently random people in need.
As the story evolves we come to realise, through flashbacks, that Ben was involved in a car accident and feels responsible for the seven deaths it resulted in, and you twig pretty soon that this is why he feels the need to better seven strangers' lives.
Complicating his plans however, Ben falls in love with one of the strangers, Emily (Played by Rosario Dawson) a young woman with a heart condition that without a transplant doesn't give her long to live.
He's left with the decision to stay and love her, but change his plans, or help her an alter their future together hugely.
This is a beautiful but heartbreaking film, which has stayed with me for days.
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16 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, THAT'S what it's about, 25 Mar 2009
Will Smith raised his pedigree in the eyes of many when he starred in THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS, which was directed by Gabriele Muccino. I quite liked that, so when I noticed that the two of them had teamed up again, I thought I'd give it a go. It was kind of the opposite of 'once bitten, twice shy'. In other words, I went to see this with high hopes, particularly as the premise sounded intriguing - 'Seven names. Seven Strangers. One Secret. Smith plays the character of Ben Thomas, an IRS agent with a fateful secret who embarks on an extraordinary journey of redemption by forever changing the lives of seven complete strangers.'
Just as with the other film (Pursuit...) I approached this knowing no more about it than what I had seen in trailers and commercials. I liked the sound of it. It sounded interesting. The trouble is, once I found out what it was about, my interest pretty much collapsed. Imagine going to see The Sixth Sense and knowing in advance What It Was About - it would be almost pointless. This is why the producers of Seven Pounds went to unusual lengths to protect the film's synopsis, going so far as to tell professional critics not to reveal too much in their reviews. Because once you know, you think "Oh, THAT'S what it's about". And just about all semblance of mystery and intrigue fizzles away in moments.
What I can say here, safe in the knowledge that it won't put anyone off or give anything important away, is that Will Smith starts off in this film as a man calling 9-1-1 to report his own suicide. Sounds interesting. Then he starts having flashbacks. We see him being rude to a blind man in a call centre, selling meat. He harrasses a woman in a hospital who has a problem with her heart. He claims to be from the IRS. And he's got this thing about jellyfish. All very weird, all very confusing and I was thinking, what's going on? (And I love films, or books, that make me ask that question) But it's not very long into the film that I realised what was going on, and my immediate thought was 'oh no, please - please make it more substantial, more unusual than that'. And no responsible person who has seen this film should tell you what 'that' is, because once you know, you might not bother. It's more a matter of Will Smith wanting to act even harder in order to get an Oscar nomination (and win, of course) now that he's had a taste of what it feels like to be respected as an actor following his decent efforts in The Pursuit of Happyness. He wants to go one better. But for us, the gullible viewers who pay good money to see him because, well, he's Will Smith and it's a serious movie, be in no doubt that this is nothing more than a dumb, self-indulgent piece of work that reveals itself so early on that you just sit there for the substantial remainder of the running time thinking 'yeah, yeah....yeah....OK....right, come on, get to the end will you'. It's like hearing a not-very-funny joke for the second or third time, you've heard the punchline before and you can't wait for somebody to tell you something new.
Not a great film by any stretch of the imagination despite some beautiful cinematography. All of the best efforts made by those who contributed anything worthwhile are undone by the ultimate pointlessness of the whole exercise. Two stars is really rather generous but to be fair I save the minimum allocation to utter lemons - this is borderline mind you.
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