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Seven Pounds (PG-13) **
Will Smith gets serious, and it's a taxing slog.
Will Smith and Rosario Dawson co-star in Columbia Pictures' drama, "Seven Pounds."
Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald
The makers of Seven Pounds have struggled mightily to keep the particulars of their movie from leaking in order to preserve the story's surprises. One thing is evident, though, from the opening scene: This is not a comedy.
The film begins with a visibly distraught Will Smith calling 911 to report a suicide -- his own. The scene doesn't make much sense, and director Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness), working from a script by Grant Nieporte, continues to disorient the audience over much of the first hour.
We watch, for example, as Ben Thomas (Smith) intentionally harasses a blind telemarketer (Woody Harrelson), cruelly insulting him for no apparent reason. We notice that Ben keeps a deadly jellyfish in a vertical water tank in his living room, a curious choice for a pet.
We discover that Ben works for the IRS, dropping in on people who owe back taxes, such as Emily (Rosario Dawson), who needs a heart transplant and can barely manage to pay her medical bills. And gradually, we realize that Ben is trying to find ''good'' people in dire straits in order to help them right their lives.
It takes a while for Seven Pounds to connect the dots between its seemingly disparate elements, but one of the problems of this relentlessly somber, humorless picture is that despite all the advance secrecy, the viewer gets way ahead of the story early. Muccino errs with a couple of quick but ill-conceived flashbacks that reveal more of the overall plot than he seems to realize, and once you've figured out what's going on, it's a slow slog to the end.
Normally, Smith's natural charisma would hold your attention even when the movie didn't. But the actor has tamped down his natural wit and charm in order to portray Ben's great guilt and depression, and although his performance is interesting on the level of an acting exercise, his character remains distant and somewhat of a cipher, even after Ben and Emily embark on a tentative romance.
In hindsight, the affair doesn't make much sense. In fact, a lot of Seven Pounds doesn't really add up when you play the movie back in your head. Muccino, who balanced humor and pathos so well in Happyness, goes too heavy on the melodrama this time, at the expense of practically any other emotional shadings.
As written, Seven Pounds would have always been a melancholy experience, but a lighter touch would have helped to keep you from noticing the implausibility of its plot. When Ben rewards a struggling single mother with a beachfront home, the first thing that popped into my head was, ``How is she going to afford the property taxes?''
Cast: Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Barry Pepper, Michael Ealy
Director: Gabriele Muccino
Screenwriter: Grant Nieporte
Producers: Will Smith, Steve Tisch, Todd Black
A Columbia Pictures release. Running time: 118 minutes. Vulgar language, sexual situations, adult themes.
| Average rating based on 1 review. |
What you said
This movie had to have been by far the most depressing thing I've watched since the documentary on the Kennedy Legacy. Every heavy picture needs something light and airy to dissipate some of its melancholy undertones but this movie did the opposite. As time passed it only got more and more depressing. I left the theater wanting to chug a gallon of Jack Daniels and cry about every sad moment in my life. Not for the faint of heart! ... Read more
