I’ve not read a single good review of this movie. Just one comment on Twitter that it was okay. Other than that it was universally panned. You know what? Not so bad. Was it heavy-handed? Yes. Was it obvious what was going to happen about 2 minutes in? Yes. Will Smith’s performance was a little uneven, but I think there were a lot of commendable bits.
Will Smith is a man looking for people to help in a quest for redemption. He observes the individuals to make sure they are good people. He helps them in various ways once deciding they are worthy.
I think the movie rightly focused on the Will Smith/Rosario Dawson relationship, but I think the Will Smith/Woody Harrelson relationship got too much screen time, at the expense of other more worthy relationships, like the one between Will Smith and Michael Ely (in the role of Will’s brother) and the one between Will and Barry Pepper (Will’s character’s best childhood friend). Actually, if you ask me, cut out Woody altogether and just add these other two relationships.
The movie’s central relationship between Will and Rosario worked to a degree. I think Will had more chemistry with Rosario than many of the other female leads in his other movies. I thought Rosario did a great job, as usual.
For what it’s worth, I REALLY hated the last scene. It was just ridiculous bad and obvious. The only way it could’ve been worse if there was some party of all the people Will Smith helped.
All that said, I can’t say I’d tell anyone not to see Seven Pounds. It’s kind of an obvious movie, but that doesn’t make it necessarily bad.
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