Feb 19, 2009 02:31 PM
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If this film doesn't get nominated for an Oscar/Academy Award, then the jury is bad. Let me start by saying I didn't care much to see this movie.
Although the trailer left much to the imagination it looked quite boring. But Will Smith is determined to swing both ways, in terms of artistic exploration. If, on the one hand he wants to give his viewers Adrenalin high with films like Men in Black.
I Legend and Hancock, he also wants them to remember him as a high performer with soul-stirring acts like The Pursuit of Happiness and now, Seven Pounds. Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is the most unusual tax man in town. Unlike the sharks in the IRS, this sad man with soulful eyes goes looking for deserving people who should be given a tax break.
Some tax man! Living all by himself in a fleabag motel, with a jelly fish for company, hehunts all day for suitable men and women who deserve a favor. And finds them in the usual places: in hospitals, bars and broken homes, where the almost dead and the hopeless wait for sordid ends.
Forlorn Ben not only befriends them, he even finds a solution to their problems and ends up like the friendly neighborhood Spider man, albeit withoutthe web and the flying fetish.
The acting is simply breathtaking. Will Smith brings on a performance that shatters every preconceived notion you had about him. He is so very earnest, on the ball and completely involved in his characterization as Ben that you believe in him totally.
RoisarioDawson as Emily Posa, the woman with the defective heart perfects the vulnerable act, Woody Harrelson is also quietly effective as the blind man. 'Seven Pounds ' really wouldn't have been so poignantly appealing without their brilliant contributions!
The majority of the movie is mysterious, slightly confusing and will have you guessing a lot. It's almost hard to believe so many loose ends could be tied up as it nears its ending, but it does, and it does sobeautifully. Everything culminates in this magnificent ending that will make you want to tell everyone you meet to go see this movie now.
