Opening today, Will Smith stars in a very special Oprah's Big Give.
What's so special about it? It's extra self-important.
In Seven Pounds, Smith is sullen, distraught IRS agent Ben Thomas, a gloomy gus hell-bent on helping total strangers in order to atone for some deep dark flashback sequence.
How he intends to aid them is the pseudo secret of this dreary drama, laboriously directed by Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness cohort Gabriele Muccino.
I say "pseudo secret" because, thanks to the startling spoiler that kicks off the film, it's fairly obvious what's going on around the 10-minute mark.
It's like if The Empire Strikes Back opened with Darth Vader taking a paternity test. And once you know -- or at least suspect -- both what Smith's cryptic plan is and what the film's title refers to, there's little else compelling about this sluggish, self-righteous downer.
Actually, that's not entirely true. If there's a reason to recommend Seven Pounds, it's an effortless, invigorating performance by the gorgeous, undervalued Rosario Dawson. She plays Emily, one of the people Smith's tormented Ben may deem worthy of his specific kind of assistance.
Also in the running for Ben's help is an oily doctor who runs a nursing home, a mother of two with an abusive boyfriend, and a sweet-natured blind man played by Woody Harrelson.
Don't pay too much attention to them, though. Because the manipulative screenplay insists on constructing a romance between Ben and Emily, Woody and the others get shafted for screen-time.
Not that I'm complaining about mucho Rosario -- she does her best to shoulder the weight -- but had the film opened up Ben's world beyond puzzle-piece flashbacks and enigmatic images (a recurring one being a jellyfish), it might have breathed some much-needed oxygen into the emotionally airtight proceedings.
As it is, Ben -- an upscale professional who had a lovely wife and sprawling beachside digs before he did a bad, bad thing -- behaves like one-third Ty Pennington and two-thirds The Fugitive's Richard Kimble.
He swoops in to help strangers in distress and then ducks out before viewers can think too much about the potential consequences. (Similar loopholes in logic also plagued Knight Rider, The A-Team and B.J. and the Bear.)
Of course, a movie as difficult to market as Seven Pounds exists solely because Smith -- who's worth his weight in gold at Sony -- is seeking to flex some serious-actor muscle.
And to be fair, he has been superb in Ali, the aforementioned Pursuit of Happyness and even last year's science-fiction thriller I Am Legend.
But here he's at such a constant boil -- either exploding in rage or imploding in grief -- that the film, which is intended as life-affirming, is rendered impenetrable and curiously unaffecting.
Pound for pound, it's a hefty disappointment.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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