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SINGAPORE : Forget those less than impressive American box-office results and the mixed critical reviews. With a plot more effective the less you know about it going in, "Seven Pounds" is well worth the time and money - when viewed with the right mind and heart.
Ben (Will Smith) has suffered a horrific tragedy and he’s making up for it by helping out total strangers, including a blind phone salesman (Woody Harrelson) and a beautiful woman with a failing heart (Rosario Dawson). His exact intentions towards these folks are deliberately concealed by an elliptical editing style, which flits back and forth in time.
It’s clear that Ben is seriously troubled, but kind. Angry, but sensitive. In emotional pain, but wanting to do good. A tailor-made Oscar-worthy role for any actor? Perhaps, but Mr Big-Time Movie Star more than delivers, burying his natural effervescence to locate the layers of pain and vulnerability within his character without alienating the audience.
Dawson gives the best performance of her career so far, shifting her into a whole new acting stratosphere - one that she showed no capability of inhibiting till now.
Great performances aside, the slow-moving middle and overall sluggish pace is a letdown from director Gabrielle Muccino (who also directed Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness), who is unable to follow-through on an intriguing premise to make a truly remarkable film. That said, he still manages to bring us on a journey that keeps us in a state of flux: One where you become assured in your suspicions of that big twist to come, yet cannot fathom how they could possibly be correct. And then realising you were right all the while, flabbergasted that the film would ever take you there.
With the final scenes so irredeemably hopeful, the big emotional pay-off is well worth the convoluted wait. - TODAY/rose
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