so i was loaned a copy of this movie last week and watched it last night and all I have to say is this: TERRIBLE i think its coming out this weekend but its probably one of the worst "awards" movie i have seen in recent memory along with the christian bale movie from a couple of years ago where he played john smith and it was about pocahontas or so. Spoiler the movie is supposed to be about him saving 7 people. thats a real real stretch since 2 of the people are little kids by my count. also 2 of the people he helps are just mentioned in passing. one of them they spend maybe 2 minutes on at most. the entire movie is about him and rosario dawson's character and its a very very bland love story line at that. woody harrelson's character maybe 4-5 minutes total on if that and he was much more interesting to me yeah do yourself a favor and skip this movie i expect it to still have a decent opening weekend because of will smith but after that there should be a drop-off
The 1st time I saw the preview I was like WTF! Premise sounds silly to me and I'm pretty sure I'll feel the same way you did after watching it. I'll wait for it to hit the dollar movie theatre rather than waste good money on it.
Well, since it's Will Smith, it'll probably do better than Delgo...maybe maybe no... btw, I won't be seeing it...Hell I didn't see handcock either...
this movie will draw some numbers because of will smith, but i am going to see Nothing But the Truth this weekend, sexy kate beckinsale
Will Smith is overrated. The commercial for this movie where he spouts off something about changing peoples' situations sounded very pretentious and over the top. And supposedly he wants to do a remake of Oldboy, wtf
Spoiler smith was a wildly successful aerospace engineer who started his own company and one night on a ride home he gave his wife a ring and they were admiring it and he gets into a car accident he swerves and misses the first car and gets side swiped. another van swerved and rolls killing 6 people inside. in the process after his car gets hit his wife dies as well. So he feels that he is responsible for the death of 7 people. He goes and tries to help 7 people he feels truly deserves it with all the wealth he has. the guilt of killing those people and his wife sends him into a depression where he wants to also kill himself. so thats the big secret he is atoning for his 'murder' its a really lame premise. and like i said the movie focused just on one of the people he saved. and two of the other people he saved was kind of a smaller cop out. two little kids whose mom he helped out. two people they didnt even show him helping out one of the characters just says..he helped me out with this and then her out.
That's Whassup! I saw her on Leno last week and she's still a dime. Gotta be in my top 10 finest actress list.
Will Smith is a STAR, I think the box office numbers bare that out. He seems very humble whenever he speaks. If the movie overreaches, it's just entertainment no biggie. by Roger Ebert I am fascinated by films that observe a character who is behaving precisely, with no apparent motivation. A good actor brings such a role into focus, as Will Smith does in the enigmatically titled "Seven Pounds." Who is he, what does he want, why is he behaving so oddly for an IRS agent? And why won't he kiss Rosario Dawson, when they both so obviously want that to happen? As Ben Thomas, the man from the IRS, he can get in anywhere and ask any question. But surely the IRS doesn't require him to punch a nursing home supervisor for not allowing an old lady her bath? And why, after he intuits he is speaking to a blind man on the phone, is he so needlessly cruel to him? And why then does he follow the same man (Woody Harrelson) into a restaurant and engage him in conversation? And why does he check into a fleabag hotel? Doesn't the IRS pay him a salary? And what favor does his lifelong friend Dan (Barry Pepper) owe him? And why is he looking for people who need their own favors? And so on. For much of the first hour of "Seven Pounds," Ben Thomas acts according to a plan that seems perfectly clear, but only to himself. The reason it goes unexplained is that he has no need to explain it to himself, and no way to explain it to anyone else. I am reminded of a film you should see some day, Melville's "Le Samourai," about a man who lies on a bed in a dark hotel room and smokes, and gets up, and pays meticulous attention to his appearance, and goes out into the night, and we have no idea who this man is. I find this more interesting than a movie about a man whose nature and objectives are made clear in the first five minutes, in a plot that simply points him straight ahead. Will Smith displays a rather impressive range of emotional speeds here. He can be a tough, merciless IRS man. He can bend the rules on some cases. He can have a candlelight dinner with a beautiful woman named Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) and go home afterward. She can sense his deep sadness. He is angry with people sometimes, but he seems angriest of all at himself. It's quite a performance. And Dawson makes Emily not simply a woman confused, maybe offended, by his behavior, but a woman of instinctive empathy, who does an emotional dance with him, following his lead when he needs to be treated like an IRS agent or like a perfect gentleman or like a man who needs understanding even if she doesn't know what she's supposed to understand. I haven't even hinted about the hidden motives in this film. Miraculously for once, even the trailers don't give anything away. I'll tell you one thing: I may have made Ben sound like an angel, but he is very much flesh and blood, and none of his actions are supernatural. He has his reasons. The director is Gabriele Muccino, who also directed Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness." He is effective at timing the film's revelations so that they don't come suddenly like a U-turn; they're revealed at the last necessary points in the story. Some people will find it emotionally manipulative. Some people like to be emotionally manipulated. I do, when it's done well. I'm down. I loved what Scorsese did with Infernal Affairs and I'd love to see this movie remade. You can't accuse Will of not taking chances.
I cant really argue my dislike of Will Smith, its partially if not mainly irrational. I havent liked his humor in movies, but I thought Enemy of the State and Ali did what they were supposed to do well. Pursuit of Happiness was good, but I still wasnt moved as much as I was when I used to watch Fresh Prince (the episode where his dad returns comes to mind.) Its like all the movies he does now have these exhausted aspirations to be academy nominated. And I agree Scorcese did an excellent job adapting Internal Affairs. My knowledge of asian cinema isnt that great, but I dont think that series reached anywhere near the cult favorite status that Oldboy achieved. Not to mention, itd be a tragedy if they vanilla up anything from the original, like they changed the ending of I am Legend. Of course, if Oldboy were made for commercial appeal, everything would have to be vanilla'd up.
Oddly. . .I think My imagination seems to working better than this movie sounds I figure him trying to save 7 peoples lives mean he was gonna be donating his organs or something [7 pounds. . . figuring his heart/kidneys/corneas etc would add up to7 pounds] but I think I was wrong [this is not a spoiler but pure speculation on my part] that sounds more interesting that what I am reading here Rocket River
I saw it and I thought it was really good. Spoiler Though I agree with OP. I wished Woody's character would've been seen more and that they would've fleshed out others.
It's not gonna be a remake, Oldboy is a manga, they are doing an american adaptation of the manga, not a remake of the film.
A local Omaha DJ actually screwed up on Friday morning and disclosed the plot; which made the movie completely predictable. But I thought it was a decent acting exercise for Smith; and Rosario Dawson is a tasty dish. I'm a little bummed that there are probably 15 or so theaters in this town, but half of the movies I wanted to watch this fall - Milk, Frost/Nixon, Happy Go Lucky, Defiance or Doubt - probably won't show up until after Oscar noms or on InDemand.
The_Yoyo, I think you're wrong about one thing in that spoiler... Spoiler You're miscounting the seven people... 1) Ezra, the blind guy 2) the kid who got bone marrow 3) the hockey coach 4) Emily Posa 5) the lady he gave his house to 6) (these last two were revealed at the end) his brother who he gave a lung to 7) the Social services person who gave him the name of #5
