Reviews You Can Use: Seven Pounds

Yesterday, I went and saw the new Will Smith feature, Seven Pounds. (You can see the trailer here)

Before I go on to my review of the movie, I want to digress just a second, and talk something very important.

Vince Vaughn. Vince. I want to level with you. Look yourself up on IMDB. Things are getting bad, Vince. Do you know what you're in right now? Four Christmases. Do you know what movie came right before that? Fred Claus. There's a pattern here, Vince. And it's a disturbing one. Now, I know you're not looking to win any Oscars here. I get it. But is this where it's ending up? Are we just going to have to settle for a vomit inducing lump of crap in our stocking every time it snows? Because we've seen better, Vince. We've seen The Breakup. We've seen Anchorman. We've even seen The Cell for gods sake, man. But Four Christmases? C'mon, Vince. Next year, is it Christmas With the Kranks?

All right. With that out of the way, on to the review.

I will admit. I was mislead by this movie. The poster very clearly states that this is from the director of "The Pursuit of Happiness". And frankly, I had no desire to go see a feel good, luke warm pumpkin pie holiday movie. But once it got going, things were a little different than expected.

The Pacing: The pacing of this movie is...at best you could call it slow. It is ponderous. Some scenes are very long. In some scenes, very little happens (action wise, anyway). But the tone is ok becuse of...

The Writing: The dialogue feels very natural. It is sparse, but genuine. There is a lot of cursing (for a PG-13 flick), but it doesn't feel out of place.

The Behind the Scenes Stuff: Mostly, all of this stays out of it's own way. The cinematography is fairly simple. The direction is light. Because really, what shines here is...

The Acting: This is, undoubtedly, the most important part of this film. My guess is, it'll be the only part we'll see come awards season, and for very good reason: Will Smith is phenomenal. Before I move on to Will Smith, I will take a moment to touch on a couple of the supporting characters... Rosario Dawson puts in a solid, simple performance. Nothing stretching or out of the norm, but it works here. Woody Harrelson is as likeable and warm as always, not electrifiying the screen, but making it a gentler place. And Berry Pepper puts in a small, emotionally clear performance as the best friend of Ben, Will Smith's character.

Now, on to Will Smith. You see, he gets his own paragraph here. Which is because he's not just the lynchpin to this movie. He is the movie. Really, I call this less of a movie, and more of a moving character portrait. It's not so much about what he does, but who he is. And in fact, that makes for fascinating fare. What we see on screen is mostly what we dont; the inner struggle that Will Smith goes through throughout the entire movie is what effects every single action that happens. It's rare that you come across a film that is truly Man vs. Himself. But here is one (the last I remember was About Schmidt). For the duration of the movie, we watch as Smith's character Ben struggles with mountains of grief and sorrow and (for the most part) we're really not sure why. But he handles every turn and every hidden sorrow with grace and elegance, only rarely letting anything boil to the surface.

The twists in the plot are suitable and I didn't catch one of them before it happened, so I appreciated that.

Come awards season, we should see Will Smith's name several times (for very good reason). Hopefully, when the Oscar nods are being announced, he's up there for Best Actor. If not, it's a travesty. But then, god knows that's happened before.

The Final Word: See it. If not at the theaters, then when it comes out on video. I would try to see it before the oscars come out, because Will Smith is likely to be nominated.

Till later...


--Paul