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> PAY IT FORWARD (2000)
Get out the tissues. Pay it Forward paints today's world with a dark brush, which Haley Joel Osment tries to lighten.

By John C. Lyons
Film Critic

Directed by: Mimi Leder

Written by: Catherine Ryan Hyde, Leslie Dixon

Genre: Dramatic Comedy

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, Haley Joel Osment

Our Rating: 7 out of 10

A film doesn't get much more buzz than this do-gooder starring the likes of Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt, and Haley Joel Osment. I really liked this film right up to the last quarter, or so, at that point it just seemed to lose some of its punch.

The film starts out by showing some things about our world today that everyone knows about, but always forgets or ignores, mainly poverty. The first day of class Trevor McKinney (Osment) and his classmates are presented with a homework assignment from Mr. Simonet (Spacey), this assignment is to change the world in some way. Pretty monumental task you might say, but with very small steps Trevor comes up with a pretty good concept, reflected in the film's title. When someone is in need, you help them out (something big), and instead of them paying you back; they have to help three other people in tough situations. And so the "movement" begins. Along the way Trevor finds that some people are harder to help than others, mainly his mother (Hunt) and Mr. Simonet, who he tries to setup with one another.

Everyone seems to have issues in this film. This gives Pay It Forward a very realistic feeling. No one is perfect by any means. Simonet is badly scarred from burns, Mrs. McKinney works at a strip club and has never really found true love, and then there is Trevor, who tries to tackle more than he can sometimes handle. As you can imagine, situations like these lead to a lot of tense sequences in the film, and because of the great cast they really project this emotion to the audience. There was a lot of early Oscar buzz for this film, we will have to see how this pans out, however, I think that the buzz began a little early in the Oscar season and we should see (and have seen) better films out there this year. One big gripe I have is that the ending sequences were too exaggerated which stole the film's steam and eventually hurt it.

I took in this flick at the wonderful Tinseltown theaters on upper Peach Street in Erie.

What I liked: Great acting and cast; good storyline

What I didn't like: I did get a little tired of Haley Joel's weepy face by the time the film ended; the last few scenes were a bit exaggerated which took away from their power

(00-1105)