Pay it Forward

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

There are three good things about this movie: Kevin Spacey delivers a solid performance despite looking like a piece of raw meat, Haley Joel Osment proves that The Sixth Sense wasn’t a fluke and that he can actually act, and no one sings a duet with Huey Lewis. Other than that, Pay it Forward plays like an overly long made-for-TV movie, summoning more dysfunction and personal anguish than a Baldwin family reunion. Director Mimi Leder, who also directed action duds The Peacemaker and Deep Impact, tugs at the heartstrings harder than Sally Struthers—with much the same effect.

Precocious seventh grader Trevor McKinney (Osment) responds to a assignment from his horribly scarred social studies teacher (Spacey) by coming up with the concept of “paying it forward”—when someone does you a big favor, instead of paying them back, you pay it forward by helping someone else. Got it? Along the way he attempts to rehabilitate a homeless drug addict (The Thin Red Line’s James Caviezel), play Guardian Angel to the school wimp, and hook up his aforementioned lonely teacher. The notion catches on, and soon a reporter (Jay Mohr) comes to Vegas to find the source of this ground-breaking philosophy.

While it’s admirable to see a movie about ideas rather than alien invasions, satanic possession, or secret agents, Pay it Forward takes on too much and ends up being nothing more than a melodramatic series of speeches and tears. Jon Bon Jovi’s cameo as an alcoholic father certainly brought us to tears—of laughter. Seeming like neither an alcoholic nor a father, he thankfully disappears after a nanosecond of screen time. And by the way, does the notion of Helen Hunt as an alcoholic stripper appeal to anyone? We were hoping Paul Reiser would show up and reveal this all to to be a Mad About You dream episode. Unless you like your sentiment beaten over your head until you’re in an emotional coma, Pay it Forward’s not for you.

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