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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 2995
Released: May 15, 2001 |
| Our Price: $7.68 |
| Used Price: $1.99 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
HOW MUCH IMPACT CAN ONE HEARTFELT IDEA HAVE? A JUNIOR-HIGHSTUDENT'S CLASS PROJECT IDEA IGNITES A CHAIN REACTION OFGOODNESS AND CONSEQUENCES. THE BOY'S IDEA: WHEN SOMEONE DOESYOU A FAVOR, DON'T PAY IT BACK, PAY IT FORWARD.
Description of Pay It Forward:
Pay It Forward is a multi-level marketing scheme of the heart. Beginning as a seventh-grade class assignment to put into action an idea that could change the world, young Trevor McKinney (Haley Joel Osment) comes up with a plan to do good deeds for three people who then by way of payment each must do good turns for three other people. These nine people also must pay it forward and so on, ad infinitum. If successful, the resulting network of do-gooders ought to comprise the entire world. Trevor's attempts to get the ball rolling include befriending a junkie (James Caviezel) and trying to set up his recovering-alcoholic mother (Helen Hunt) with his burn-victim teacher (Kevin Spacey), who posed the assignment.
While this could have turned into unmitigated schmaltz, the acting elevates this film to mitigated schmaltz. By turns powerful and measured, the performances of Spacey, Hunt, and Osment can't make up for the many missteps in a screenplay that sanitizes the look of the lower-middle class and expects us to believe that homeless alcoholics and junkies speak in the elevated manner of grad students. (Can that really be Angie Dickinson as Hunt's dispossessed mother? Yes, it is!) The germ of the story is a good one, though, and one may wonder how it would have been handled by the likes of Frank Capra, who could balance sentiment with humor. But clearly Capra would never have let the ending of his version to take the nosedive into cliché and pathos that director Mimi Leder has allowed in this film. More than a few viewers will also recognize that Leder has blatantly borrowed her final image from Field of Dreams, where its intended effect was more keenly and honestly felt. --Jim Gay
Pay It Forward Reviews:
stupid 
2009-12-16 - Sorry, I can only muster one word for my overall summation of this movie - STUPID.
Beyond that, when the director TRIES to make the audience cry, most of the time the movie ends up being over the top and campy- I guess those two apply to this movie as well. Okay, it was stupid, campy, and over the top.
Rent "Old Yeller" if you want to cry...
Everyone should have to watch this movie 
2009-12-13 - The moral of this movie is great and evryone needs to watch it. I believe that they should show this movies in every school workd wide. It could change the world.
Pay it Forward
2009-12-12 - It was so perfect that I gave it as a gift and the recipient is still thanking me profusely! Thank you so much.
One of my favorite movies of all time
2009-12-11 - Hands down, this is one of my favorite movies of all time. Some may call it a "cheezy chick flick" -- but the lesson of the movie has impacted my life and in turn, the lives of others as well.
The acting in this movie by all of the leads is superb. Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment have always been two of my favorites. In my mind, this is their unappreciated best.
Wonderful addition to a spiritual film library
2009-12-08 - We have a large, and well thought out film library at A Home Away. All of our films are recovery or spiritually based. Pay It Forward was a natural addition, and it has been very well received. Our guests come broken and looking for a new way to live. This film is all about broken people looking for love and acceptance in the world in new and healthy ways. The characters are very real. The portrayal of alcoholism and all of its bafflement is very accurate.
This film brings tears to eyes, and hope to hearts. It reinforces one of my favorite sayings, "don't give up 5 minutes before the miracle happens".
I recommend this film for everyone.
