when critics attack seemingly well - intentioned films like patch adams or more recently pay it forward as i am about to do , their opinions are often greeted with a backlash of angry e - mails , sometimes even mock death threats from those who ( i suppose ) like to be shamelessly manipulated by their entertainment .
even politicians ( ! ) tend to dismiss film critics as heartless cynics for occasionally dumping on good - hearted films while praising " filth " like pulp fiction .
these [ fill in the derogatory term that you are comfortable with ] tend to forget that a film critic 's job is to review the movie , not the message , however sweet and endearing that message may be .
thusly patch adams is n't a bad film because it 's about a doctor who cares for his patients ; it 's a bad film because it 's a calculated piece of brazen audience exploitation .
similarly while pay it forward may have its heart in the right place ( though i even doubt that , stay tuned , an explanation is forthcoming ) , it 's still an unpleasantly maudlin mess .
the picture is about an emotionally guarded 5th grade history teacher ( a somewhat similarly guarded kevin spacey ) , with a burn scared face and equally singed attitude , who gives his class the seemingly impossible assignment of doing one thing over the course of the semester that will change the world .
12 year old trevor ( haley joel osmet ) , a disneyfied do gooder who takes care of his alcoholic mother ( helen hunt ) , comes up with the notion to pay it forward ; this entails a person doing one good deed ( call it an uber favor ) for three others , then telling them to do the same for three others and before long we 're all living in a frank capra movie .
meanwhile in a parallel story , a weasely reporter ( jay mohr ) tracks the " movement " which has apparently begun to grow .
pay it forward has odd ideas about tone ; at certain points it hurls a smattering of unnecessary cynicism at us as if that would be the appropriate antidote to the unrelenting sappiness at its core
.
it 's as if director mimi leder did n't have the confidence to make pay it forward the way she intended , and compromised out of fear that her film was n't " gutsy " enough to earn the acclaim it has clearly been made for .
so the picture adds grit ( a child molester propositions trevor , a homeless man returns to heroin after being " saved " , a character is knifed while doing a good deed , etc ) though
it seems shallow , incorporated into the proceedings because the film itself is n't quite sure if it 's ready to buy into its own utopian blather .
pay it forward offers " crowd pleasing " elements for general audiences ; jay mohr 's umpteenth variation on the waspy sleazeball , angie dickinson 's earthy alcoholic bag woman , and the jive - talking " black hoodlum with a heart of gold " ( coming on the heals of the black , god - like inmate embodied by gabriel casseus in bedazzled , this may just be the beginnings of a brand new guilty white liberal clich ? .
hurray for hollywood ) who actually calls the mohr character a " nigga " and says things like " can you feel me ?
" leave it to pay it forward to happily include a little minstrel act for our further enjoyment .
( maybe spike 's flick was n't so misguided after all ) .
these scenes feel as if they belong in a dopey comedy with feel good aspirations rather than the irritatingly saccharine drama that you 'll find yourself trapped in
should you not heed my warnings .
while the filmmakers have stressed in interviews that they actually hope this is a film that could make the world a better place , to me the final product has the oily feel of a cynical politician contemptuously reciting cookie fortune slogans to a hopeful audience
.
it 's a picture that looks to be tailor made for academy consideration , with the main players ( all previous oscar winners or nominees ) given big emotional scenes that are practically variations on their most lauded turns .
one scene in which a slightly de - glamed helen hunt ( de - glamed here means that not only is she a fashion victim
[ her look is somewhere between goth queen and trailer park mama ] , hunt 's hair is also natty and badly bleached ) verbally castigates spacey , feels right out of her as good as it gets oscar clip .
spacey , of course , responds in his cultured monotone , that could be straight from his low key american beauty performance .
maybe the actor should get an award for coming off the least self consciously irritating ; though how can he not , even when he 's emoting spacey seems somehow shielded by a wry indifference .
the usually talented helen hunt is the worst offender .
in one atrocious touched by an angel moment hunt slaps osmet , immediately covering her mouth with the guilty hand in that very same stroke , and with said hand still on said mouth , she actually begins convulsing ( dry heaving really ) , then ( and i 'm not making this up )
she scurries to the kitchen tearing the place apart in a frenzied search for alcohol .
the scene is so hokey it could very nearly be construed as a parody of hackneyed tv movie blow - ups
; it 's all very theatrical , especially hunt 's performance , which feels like a pathetic plea to the academy for another oscar .
pay it forward
has the dubious distinction of being a film that could be used as an argument for why actors should n't get academy awards .
the picture unknowingly affirms that oscars transform nuanced talent into overwrought expressionists .
even haley joel osemt , the wunderkind who was nominated for an academy award for his unforced performance in sixth sense , seems more divisive about his expressions and inflections .
his acting has become broader , less intimate ; it 's as if we can make out the little munchkin 's thoughts : " boy this outta floor em " .
naturally osmet is made to play one of those only - in - the - movies children , a martyr - figure who cleans up after his mother , lectures her on the ills of drinking , and even fixes her up on a date with his intellectual teacher .
never mind that the two could n't be more dissimilar ; his mother is trailer trash dopey , and the teacher is one of those dennis miller - ey intellectuals who hides his insecurities behind a vast vocabulary .
nevertheless this little nudnik goes out of his way to bring the pair together in a scene that recalls parent trap - ish cornball antics .
but oh how we love bright , articulate , self - sacrificing children who pick adults up by their bootstraps and guide them through life .
they 're so adorable .
of course the blame ca n't all be hoisted onto the actors ( though with the exception of the little kid , they probably should have known better ) , instead the brunt of it should be passed on to mimi leder , who directed one of the most thrilling episodes of er , then went on to make two awful genre films in a row .
the first being the peacemaker , a witless post - cold war george clooney vehicle , and deep impact , one of the two films of 1998 to squander the premise of earth 's possible demise by a crazed meteorite .
the first flick was sunk by an over reliance on clich ?
s , and a complete absence of any kind of emotional involvement , not aided by an ending which actually centered around the diffusing of a ticking time bomb complete with digital read out ( apparently present for an invisible audience ) .
deep impact has more in common with pay it forward ; it 's a movie that treats earth 's impending destruction in awfully simplistic terms , completely ignoring the havoc that would so obviously take place if the world believed its planet would be a goner within days .
the film was full of inspirational speeches where people really said nothing , though the sappy score swelled up to make it appear as if they were being profoundly touching .
in pay it forward leder continues in this vein with her intermittent dollops of cynicism seeming almost like a rebuttal : " see my movie is n't as na ?
ve as you might think " she seems to be saying .
no ,
it 's just horribly confused .
feels like a pathetic plea the scene is so hokey it could very nearly be construed as a parody of hackneyed tv movie blow - ups the picture adds grit full of inspirational speeches where people really said nothing , though the sappy score swelled up has the oily feel of a cynical politician contemptuously reciting cookie fortune slogans to a hopeful audience awfully simplistic terms the least self consciously irritating it 's still an unpleasantly maudlin mess it seems shallow irritatingly saccharine drama that you 'll find yourself trapped in should you not heed my warnings is the worst offender it 's just horribly confused like to be shamelessly manipulated by their entertainment it hurls a smattering of unnecessary cynicism at us as if that would be the appropriate antidote to the unrelenting sappiness at its core these scenes feel as if they belong in a dopey comedy has the dubious distinction recalls parent trap - ish cornball antics