7 Pounds – Movie Review

courtesy from 7 Pounds Official Website

Will Smith, oh Will Smith. If I wasn’t going past my 30s, I’d be drooling over him like a teenaged groupie.

I looked forward to 7 Pounds so much that I kept my free movie pass just for this movie. Shhh. I know I am a scrooge now that movie tickets can afford me 2 meals at the food court, perhaps even 3 at the hawker centres.

But I really looked forward to it. Will Smith is like the Hollywood equivalent of Tony Leung. They are both charmingly good looking, good in all genres of the movies they take on. They also both have a very pained look on their faces when playing deeply depressed roles. They look as if they haven’t been to toilet for weeks.

7 Pounds was an astoundingly, amazing movie. I did not regret keeping my free pass for that movie.

Will Smith plays Ben Thomas, who really isn’t who he says he is. But as Ben Thomas, he is an IRS officer who goes visiting distressed strangers as a guise to find out if they are good people so that he can extend a ‘gift’ to them. These people are terminally ill people, who either are blind (talented Woody Harrelson), needs a new home away from an abusive boyfriend, a new marrow & a new heart (lovely Rosario Dawson). Not just any heart; she also has a rare blood type.

Dawson’s character, Emily Posa, has congenital heart problems & is a very likeable lady in the movie. Because of her heart, she has limited life experiences which she so wants to try. Simple things like running is not something she can just do. She couldn’t even walk her dog without feeling like she just ran a few miles. As she deteriorates, she falls in love with Ben, who, with that pained look, can’t say much but keeps showing up around her. Ah, romance does not need many words.

Courtesy from 7 Pounds Official Website

The cinematography reveals bit by bit why Ben looked so constipated but does not give away the whole story until the end.  He is so deeply depressed that he thinks about dying every day yet something is holding him back. The climax comes finally when he has done all he is supposed to do that the bits falls into place.

You can say 7 Pounds is perhaps a more morbid version of Pay It Forward. Where one is supposed to pay forward a good deed, 7 Pounds pays back a grievous hurt inflicted on others. Without giving too much away, Ben was the cause of 7 deaths & he has to pay back those lives by offering his organs to 7 other people who needs it badly & well deserves it.

HOTA should make this their flagship movie.

I will leave you to watch for yourself what he did & how he died (oops, did I give that away?) eventually. All in all, this is a riveting movie & a must watch drama of the year.

Later.

~ by fayea on January 4, 2009.